A Mayday call may be the most important radio call you ever make, or have to respond to. They are made when there is a real possibility that someone may lose their life unless help is urgently sent. For this reason, they are treated with the utmost sincerity, and there are severe consequences for making a false and misleading a distress call.
There are actually well established radio call procedures for making a mayday call that are designed to maximise the chance that you will not only be heard, but also have vessels respond to your aid.
The best piece of advice we can give, is to copy this procedure, adapted for your own vessel, and have a laminated copy placed next to your radio so that you have a clear reminder of what to say in an emergency and you are in a high stress situation.
A distress call would be considered appropriate in the following situations:
Ultimately it is the master, or the skipper of the vessel who should determine if a MAYDAY distress signal is appropriate. The trigger should be that there is the grave and imminent danger that can cause the loss of life.
The following audio will play the complete MayDay broadcast as you would expect to hear it. Afterwards, we will break down the broadcast into specific sections.
Note: Some browsers fade in sounds if the internal media player has not been used for a while. In this case, pressing repeat will allow the message to be played normally.
A distress call is made up of two parts. The call and the message. The call is used to gain attention from marine radio users. From there, the message defines the nature of the distress.
For all distress traffic, each broadcast should be preceded with the distress signal MAYDAY. This ensures that it is clear to all those on channel that the broadcast is related to the emergency.
The initial part of the distress call is never closed out with the word over. The call immediately moves onto the distress message. Vessels that only have a VHF installation will not normally be issued a call sign. In this situation, just give the vessels name.
MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY
THIS IS
SCAMP, SCAMP, SCAMP
These buttons sequentially work through each part of a Mayday Call with sound overlay for pronunciation.
Pressing play automatically advances to the next line.
Remember, a distress message is given the highest priority, missing out the MMSI or the call sign will not prevent the emergency services responding to offer help.
The distress message defines the nature of your issue, your location and identifying features. A distress message implies that you require immediate help and that rescuers will need to come to you. That means location and means of identifying the craft
should be provided, as well as nature of the distress so rescue crews and emergency services know the potential for escalation.
The distress call and distress message should be repeated as often as necessary, especially during silence periods until an answer is received. If no answer is received on a distress frequency, repeat the call and message on any
other frequency that could attract attention.
This is the format of the distress message:
MAYDAY
THIS IS
SCAMP
Thirty Nautical Miles South West of North West Cape
Sinking after striking a submerged object
Four persons onboard, Yellow powerboat, sinking quickly with no hope of recovery. Activating the EPIRB and abandoning into the Lifeboat
OVER
These buttons sequentially work through each part of Mayday Message with sound overlay.
Positional information is one of the most important aspects of the distress message. It can be surprising to many, but identification of a small boat in distress at sea can be challenging for emergency services. Positional information is usually stated in one of three ways: