CHANNEL 16

When you take a boat out to sea, one of the first things you do is turn your VHF radio on to channel 16. This is the main switch board for all watercraft. If you get into trouble you tell it to 16. If the coast guard needs to send an urgent message to “all boaters” it will come in on 16. If you need information, you ask for it on 16. It’s like one massive party-line that’s always on. And listening in can be very interesting…

Sometimes people abuse this channel. While traveling through NYC, the coast guard was transmitting messages to its various stations when some joker—fed up with all the official mumbo-jumbo—butted in with: “wee ah! Wee ah! Snort, snort, snort, hee hee hee ha ha ha! To their credit, the coast guard didn’t miss a beat. They continued on as if nothing had happened while Vince and I were cracking up. This happened intermittently all morning long. Then there was the lovestruck boater trying to contact his paramour with: “Naughty girl, naughty girl, naughty girl—this is foreplay, foreplay, foreplay. Come in Naughty girl!” We don’t know if these two did manage to eventually “hook-up” so to speak (excuse the pun) but he did spend a considerable amount of time trying to “get in touch”. On the Erie Canal two fishing buddies were trying to find each other and when contact was finally made, it was abruptly ended when the one told the other: “Argh!! Can’t talk right now—just got a mouthful of flies!!”

Out on the Jersey coast the chatter over 16 is a little more sobering. Our first morning out from Sandy Hook the coast guard was desperately trying to contact “Captain Charlie” on a commercial fishing boat that had been reported overdue. Nothing. Towards the end of the morning, all boaters were advised to keep a lookout for Charlie and his boat. But to our knowledge, he was never found. That afternoon we heard a frantic call from a man imploring all boaters to keep a lookout for a 15 year old boy with black hair and a deep tan who had been swept out to sea. Nothing. This morning as we sailed out of Barnegat Inlet we heard the desperate call of a man on a sinking yacht. He gave his co-ordinates to the coast guard and although we were able to locate him on our charts, our boat—travelling at 6 knots/hr—was too far away to be of any help. He told the coast guard that he had lost a fitting on the stern of his boat and his bilge pump could not keep up with the water coming in. The boat was already a third full and filling up fast. Thankfully another yachtsman was able to reach the man in time to offer assistance. Half an hour later we heard the coast guard arrive at the scene and we both breathed a sigh of relief to hear he had been saved. Towboat US arrived a little later in an attempt to salvage the boat and by noon all boaters had been warned to stay clear of Great Egg Harbour as the tragic little entourage was towed in.

Aside from being “voyeurs”, our only experience with channel 16 occurred as Vince was frantically trying to get in touch with the marina at Atlantic Highlands to see if there was enough water dockside to accommodate our 6’ draft. We were getting desperate because we were fast approaching their slips and if they didn’t get back to us soon we were in very real danger of running aground. But instead of getting a reply from the harbour master all we heard on 16 was the song “if you go to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair..” and one stoner saying to another “hey, that was way cool man, but do you have some John Denver?” Never a dull moment.