If your radio has DSC, press the red distress button first. Then on VHF channel 16, at high power: say MAYDAY three times and your vessel’s name three times, then your position, what’s wrong, how many people are on board and the help you need. Say “OVER” and listen. No radio? Call 999 or 112, ask for the Coastguard, and give the same details in the same order.
Fill in your boat once, then print the card and tape it next to the radio. Everything stays in your browser: nothing you type is sent or saved anywhere.
Then release the transmit button and listen. If nobody answers within about a minute, call again. This is the order taught on the VHF/SRC course, and it matters: HM Coastguard writes your call down in that order. If you hear someone else’s MAYDAY, stop transmitting and listen; if the Coastguard doesn’t answer, relay it and help if you can.
The two calls exist so that channel 16 carries distress traffic only when it’s real. Picking the right one isn’t about manners: it decides how every station that hears you reacts.
Grave and imminent danger to the vessel or a life: sinking, fire, man overboard, serious injury.
Everyone who hears it must stop transmitting and help if they can. False MAYDAYs put rescuers at risk and are an offence in most countries.
Urgent, but no immediate danger to life: engine failure near rocks or in a shipping lane, a vessel drifting towards a hazard, a medical problem that isn’t critical yet.
Same structure, with “PAN-PAN” three times instead. If nobody’s life is at risk and you just need a tow, see Mayday or a tow?
Plenty of dinghies, kayaks, boards and jet skis carry no VHF at all. Then the call is 999 or 112: when the operator asks which service you need, ask for the Coastguard, say you are on the water, and give the same items in the same order: who you are, where, what’s wrong, how many people. The hardest part under stress is the position: read latitude and longitude straight from a GPS app rather than describing the coastline.
If you have a radio, it comes first: a DSC alert and a call on channel 16 reach HM Coastguard and every boat nearby at once, and a phone can lose signal a few miles out. Don’t ring a Coastguard station’s office number in an emergency; call 999. More in how to call the Coastguard.
By phone, the app dials 999 in UK waters and shows a six-step script of what to say, starting with “Coastguard, I am at sea” for the operator, with your position read out in words. In radio mode it shows this MAYDAY form filled in with your vessel’s name, call sign in the NATO alphabet, MMSI and live position, plus DSC and PAN-PAN guidance. It doesn’t transmit anything itself and isn’t connected to 999 or HM Coastguard: you read the words on your own radio or phone. It doesn’t replace the radio or the training; it replaces the remembering. See how it works →
MAYDAY is the distress call: grave and imminent danger to a vessel or a life, such as sinking, fire or a person overboard. PAN-PAN is the urgency call: the situation is urgent but nobody’s life is in immediate danger, such as engine failure or a drifting boat. Both follow the same structure on VHF channel 16; a PAN-PAN starts with PAN-PAN three times and ALL STATIONS three times. Every station that hears a MAYDAY must stop transmitting.
No. The script is built in your browser. “Use my location” asks your device for its position and only puts it into the form. The share link carries your details after the # sign, a part of the address that browsers never send to a server.