How good a VHF watch do you maintain?

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by wingssail

Well Thomm, we monitor the radio not because the rules say we should. We monitor it in case someone in distress calls for help.

Sounds good but where I sail if I were to hear a distress call I'd be like the 50th or so boat that would be able to assist. (and probably the slowest speed wise)

Like I said a bit of common sense is called for in most all situations.

If I was well offshore my main VHF Radio would be on all the time to assist etc but of course then there wouldn't be all the folks making random use of the VHF just to hear themselves.

After 15-20 calls to marinas, 10-15 calls to ships letting them know where they are or their intentions without being asked and on and on sometimes I'll turn the radio down completely or use my handheld which has less range so I receive less of those calls that don't concern my position and if there was a distress call the Coast Guard would receive it if I could plus maybe another 500 or so boats that are either out on the water or monitoring 16 at their slips.

Handheld with main VHF turned down as I have cleared the Southern (Thimble Shoal) Shipping Channel and am just starting to get away from the cities....

This being a week day there isn't the usual chatter by pleasure boaters wanting to "play" on the VHF Channel 16 so it's mostly real calls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TOdSCDHb2s

[Auklet]

Originally Posted by C420sailor

I find it moderately hilarious that you can fly an airplane across the US in an airplane that doesn’t even have a radio installed, yet you can’t go on a daysail without monitoring 16

Now I know why the surface warfare guys were so uptight!

There’s no requirement to install a VHF radio on your yacht. So you could “sail” from the Puget Sound to Penobscot Bay through the Canal without one. But if you install one, the rules say you must “monitor” it.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by C420sailor

I find it moderately hilarious that you can fly an airplane across the US in an airplane that doesn’t even have a radio installed, yet you can’t go on a daysail without monitoring 16

I think it is logical that hearing a call for help would be more useful among boaters than fliers. I don't think you could pull alongside an aircraft in trouble and take on passengers before they crash.
o
But, by the way, You are perfectly free to sail across the ocean or around the continent on a boat which doesn't even have a radio installed, also.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by thomm225

Sounds good but where I sail if I were to hear a distress call I'd be like the 50th or so boat that would be able to assist. (and probably the slowest speed wise)...

You don't know where the distress call is going to come from, you might be the closest boat to some powerboat full of kids about to go down, 1/4 mile from you. Wouldn't you feel terrible if you read about it the next day and figured that, by the time and location of the accident, that you were very close but that someone died even after calling for help on the radio but nobody got there in time, and you didn't hear it because your radio was off?

...Handheld with main VHF turned down as I have cleared the Southern (Thimble Shoal) Shipping Channel and am just starting to get away from the cities...

I agree that the traffic on 16 is aggravating. Maybe using the handheld is a good solution to cutting out some of the noise.

[Cynara]

Before we were cruising and were local to southern California calls on 16 never bothered us. One of our yacht club members saved a few people on jet skis. They had run out of gas and drifting offshore. .they heard the call from the cost guard. Just before dark they saw them.

[thomm225]

"You don't know where the distress call is going to come from, you might be the closest boat to some powerboat full of kids about to go down, 1/4 mile from you. Wouldn't you feel terrible if you read about it the next day and figured that, by the time and location of the accident, that you were very close but that someone died even after calling for help on the radio but nobody got there in time, and you didn't hear it because your radio was off?"

Kids are usually closer to shore than where I'm sailing and if there was a problem 1/4 of a mile from me, I could see it, hear it, and respond.

Again, it's the old common sense thing and knowing the habits of the boaters where you sail. I'm usually out sailing most every weekend during the Spring, Summer, and Fall here for the last 10 years in this area, so I know what is normal for the boaters and what isn't just with a glance.

This is my 12th boat since the early 70's, and the first with any electronics at all so it seems to have worked out and no one has died anywhere near me in all these years.

Sometimes cruisers / liveaboards are so bored they have to create things to do like monitoring the radio for any possible reason to respond to a request or a problem and sometimes they make radio calls just for fun

Of course, the liveaboards are usually walking the dock just waiting for someone to come walking down to meet, greet, and ask questions or report on the latest dock activities.