this is kayak one. . .
Published December 19, 2007 | 
Well it sounds as if the guys with Crossing the Ditch are well this morning and have everything under control. Good for them. It had to be a scary evening. Meanwhile interestingly enough the inquest into Andrew McAuley’s death has been going on as well. According to “The Age” Vicki said that she felt that if authorities had let her listen to the full distress message the night Andrew got into trouble they may have had a better change to find him. Vicki contends that with she would have been able to identify Andrew’s voice right off and therefore Paul Hewitson could then have calculated Andrew’s position, thus getting the searchers to the correct area in good time. In hindsight of course it’s hard to know these things. However, I agree that authorities not letting her hear the rest of the messages because they did not want to “distress her”, seems a bit 1950’s to me. It’s also worth noting that the RCC (according to Stuff.co.nz) lost an additional 25 minutes dealing with a second emergency on the north island. To be clear though, everyone feels the RCC did a great job all in all. The results of the inquest are due out by the end of the year.
However one other thing is jumping out to me. The call signal, “Kayak One”.
These days we have a variety of signaling and communication options if we get in trouble in our boat. PLBs, Flairs, VHF and occasionally your cell phone MAY work. (May being the key word). In some cases the VHF is not the first choice, but it may be the only choice in some situations.
In Andrew’s case either he was separated from his PLB or it failed. Hard to tell, but whatever happened he was down to using the VHF. Andrew used the standard “Kayak One” call sign. Vicki was not sure if that was the sign he was going to use. Apparently no one on the team knew that either. Let’s think about that for a moment. Why would they? I mean, we all use the same thing, right? So would we actually tell anyone what call sign we would use? Somewhere in our minds we’d just assume they know we’re going to use “Kayak One”. We’ve all seen or had the little demos, “Coast Guard, Coast Guard, this is “Kayak One”. . .”. I’d guess that Andrew just went into automatic mode and used the signal we are all taught. From the RCC or Coast Guard’s perspective by using Kayak One, really all we’ve told them is that we are in a kayak.
I think this shouts out something to the rest of us doesn’t it? In training "Kayak One" was really meant to fill in for your unique moniker I think, but for many it just seemed simple enough to use it as OUR unique moniker as well. However, learning to identify ourselves as “Kayak One’ and then later giving color of our boat and location, assumes we have time to do such things. In Andrew’s case the signal was too degraded. Not surprising really. Anyone who has used a VHF know that signal quality is hit and miss. What if your call sign was the only bit you could get out as in Andrew’s case? The RCC was left asking, “Who is Kayak One?”. This set up the situation Vicki describes. However, with a unique identifier Andrew could have been ID’d right off. There would have been no issue of trying to identify a garbled voice. [Read Transcript Here ] We can’t be sure what difference that would have made, but the issue of listening to the call over and over to figure out who it was would have been moot. They would have immediately known it was Andrew and been able to work with his team to locate him.
Of course when we are on open water, we should have a PLB in some cases, Flairs or other signaling devices, and a VHF. We also need to share a float plan with our team and in some cases with the local rescue services as well. It seems to me it may be a good time to stress UNIQUE call signs as well. Maybe there is a good reason to name your kayak after all?
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4 Responses to this is kayak one. . .
I agree that although “Kayak 1″ is what they teach you in the radio course, it really should be a mad lib for something more descriptive. When I’ve considered the worst, the callsign would probably be kayak-my name abbreviated-boat name-boat color (eg kayak richard telkwa blue) in short order – the coast guard is exceptional at keeping this kind of record as you can see from the transcripts – and that way if you miss a word in the coast guard dispatch due to interference, you’re bound to hear one of the other terms (kayak – - blue) or something like that.
Another little interesting tidbit is that you really need to stress your situation in detail before letting go of your first key in to the dispatch. That way, when the next question is: please confirm. You just have to reply with confirmed and focus more on keeping out of trouble. One thing I’ve kind of wondered is how did his handheld VHF radio at water level get picked up, from 35 NM away, “loud and clear”. Mccauley actually said he was *30 hours* out which would make it even more puzzling since it’s not a standard measurement of distance unless you’re talking about the SI hours (where each hour is ~60 miles) and that can just be downright confusing. Why couldn’t the boat closer to his position hear his side of the conversation either? Does the coast guard have repeater buoys or some sort of extremely sensitive antenna array – It would seem 35NM out, where they retrieved his boat, is nearly contending with the curvature of the earth and the signal should fall off quickly that close to the water plane?
Also, who keeps their EPIRB in the *boat* – I thought that was 100% against the rules at all times no matter how unhampered you want to paddle and particularly in a surprise storm front miles from shore? I guess that’s just history now. I guess mental fatigue is no state to be in in rough seas. This is a total tragedy, and the recent news about the dissapeared kayaker in GB probably has people looking into this way more than they should.
I’m still interested in how VHF communications in this situation managed to fail both parties so badly.
When communicating on my VHF, I’ve always used either “blue romany” or “seakayakerjb”, with the latter being the one used most of the time, and for the last couple of years the only “callsign” I’ve used.
It is not uncommon for the ends of a transmission to be cut-off by (a) starting to speak before the mic keys, and (b) releasing the ptt (push-to-talk) key before transmission is completed. This is something that I hear often while working as an EMT, and these are people who are using the radio a lot more than a kayaker ever would. For me, it does help that I have lots of previous experience in such communication devices from a past life as a sailor aboard a navy destroyer. . . at least that stuck with me, the morse code and flashing lights and flags and has mostly escaped this aging mind.
Regarding the RCC’s receipt of Andrew’s transmission–while in my kayak off of Milwaukee, it is not uncommon for me to receive transmission’s from across the lake (Lake Michigan) some 80 miles away, on my handheld VHF. The signal travels by line of sight, which would be determined by the height of the antennas. In Milwaukee the USCG antenna is located on top of a very tall building. Additionally, I’ve been told that through a repeater system there’s another antenna on top of the Sears tower 80 miles south of Milwaukee. That’s a huge line-of-sight! At what distance the power (wattage) comes into play I’m not sure. I transmit on 5 watts at high power, 1 watt on low. What’s the limit on the range of that signal I’m not sure. And, I know the signals I receive from the USCG are being transmitted at a higher wattage, but not sure how much. Some ships are also equipped with signal repeaters (as are our ambulances, and various locations around our EMS service area). These work well to pass weaker signals along.
Interesting stuff. . .
Most vessels in NZ that use VHF have a unique call sign that instantly matches their boats description and if posted their trip report. The boat’s name is used as well, thus a transmission like Andrew’s would have gone something like this:
“Mayday Mayday This is ZMx-xxxx Kayak One, I am 30 hours from the Milford coast and separated from the kayak….” Then repeated etc.
So long as the Coast Guard heard the unique call sign ZMx-xxxx their database would have spat out details of his kayak, his attempt and with a small bit of research his rough location (from his website blog etc). I think this would have reduced any confusion considerably. The word Mayday would have instantly put them on alert that it was a life and death matter. Of course this was an overseas attempt thus registering a call sign with the Royal NZ Coast Guard may not have been considered or known.
Hind sight is a wonderful thing. Which reminds me, I have to get a call sign for my kayak sometime…
yeah, here in the states too. I’d have to defer to the experts but i think just small boats don’t. In Wisconsin we don’t have to register kayaks.
The trick in this situation is to remember that 99.999% of what Andrew did as far as we know was as correct as it could be, then still try to learn what we can going forward. In the end whatever happened was catastrophic and there’s a good chance nothing would have changed the outcome.