WE sailors are a conservative lot, especially when it comes to emergency
procedures. According to my nautical almanac, we can still signal distress by
setting fire to a barrel of tar on the deck, or by flying an ensign upside
down.
True, neither method is of much practical use to weekend yachtsfolk. Even if
I kept a barrel of tar handy, I鈥檓 not sure how I鈥檇 go about setting it on fire.
And if coastguards declared an emergency every time they saw an incorrectly
hoisted flag, the lifeboats wouldn鈥檛 get a day off all summer. But it鈥檚 nice to
know that, when the chips are down, the options are there.
So it is with sadness as well as enthusiasm that we greet the arrival of the
ultimate convenience distress signal, the Global Maritime Distress and Safety
System. From this month, GMDSS sets, which send a preprogrammed stream of data
to a global network of satellites at the touch of a button, are compulsory in
all commercial ships. The shelves of ships鈥� chandlers are groaning with dinky
lightweight sets for the yachtsperson who has almost everything.
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It鈥檚 all part of the encroachment of space technology into our lives. I鈥檓 a
complete sucker. While I have so far resisted satellite television, I own
several satellite navigation gizmos and have just been sneakily reading a
brochure from the Iridium global phone service. A satellite emergency beacon is
on my wish-list for my next birthday.
The trouble with these systems is their very ubiquity. Their global reach and
convenience encourage us to abandon everything else. We have already seen off
Morse code, which, amazingly, survived until 1997 for last-resort
communications. Its rhythmic and internationally recognised distress signal SOS
had been around since 1906, when it replaced the less memorable CQD 鈥淎ll
Stations: distress鈥濃�攐r, in popular mythology, 鈥淐ome quickly, danger鈥�.
One of the first to send an SOS was Jack Phillips, the Titanic鈥檚 radio
officer, who went down with the ship. Morse was largely replaced by radio
telephony. Its distress signal is the evocative spoken word 鈥淢ayday鈥� (from the
French M鈥檃idez). And Mayday, in turn, is now being replaced by silent
streams of digital spacebound data. The discreet, 21st-century technology has
already saved lives, and will save many more. But I wonder if something is being
lost鈥攖he shared experience of peril. No one who has heard or seen a
distress signal forgets it.
No one who has sent one does, either. I鈥檝e had to do so twice. The first
time, from a grounded wooden yacht which didn鈥檛 have a radio, much less a
satellite dish, was the unofficial but time-honoured pair of trousers hoisted in
the rigging. They were bright red nylon and did the trick. A passing motorboat
towed us clear, and, for a fiver, to the nearest pub.
The second occasion was less of a laughing matter: an engine fire during a
single-handed overnight voyage in the Hebrides. The sea was calm and I had a
life raft, so even if the boat had gone down I would have survived, but my fear
was real. I sent a distress call on VHF radio, which imposes radio silence on
all who hear and requires mariners to render assistance. I鈥檇 often rehearsed the
procedure, acting out a hybrid of Phillips on the Titanic and the Apollo 13
astronaut who taciturnly reported the spacecraft explosion as a 鈥渕ain bus B
耻苍诲别谤惫辞濒迟鈥�.
In the real emergency, it all went out the window: my voice soared two
octaves and I forgot my latitude and longitude. Luckily, the coastguard calmly
sorted me out, alerted the lifeboat and directed a fishing boat to tow me to the
Isle of Mull. The skipper refused payment.
Next day, I called in at the lifeboat house to thank its volunteers for
turning out in the middle of the night to help a stranger. One of the crew was
there, sorting out some gear. I braced myself for a stern lecture on seamanship,
but he just blushed at my little speech. 鈥淥ch, it was nothing,鈥� he smiled, 鈥渁ny
迟颈尘别.鈥�