Standing Watch

 "PAN-PAN PAN-PAN PAN-PAN. This is sailing vessel SERENE HORIZON. I am taking on water about five miles outside Two Harbors and might need assistance."

I barely had time to settle into my desk chair at United States Coast Guard Station Los Angeles/Long Beach. The latte that I grabbed on the way at Common Room Roasters is still nearly full. The scratch paper that I'll be taking notes on doesn't yet have a mark on it—at least not on the side that I'll be using. I'm using a couple of repurposed log sheets that I took to Dockweiler State Beach on my most recent Parks on the Air activation for scratch paper. The flip side of each sheet contains the call signs of twenty or so amateur radio stations that I worked the previous weekend.

"Vessel in distress, this is COAST GUARD SECTOR LOS ANGELES. Say again your vessel name and the nature of your distress."

I'm getting it all down—more neatly than I usually do—on an otherwise pristine sheet of scratch paper. Sector Los Angeles, a separate command from Station Los Angeles and located right next door on the base, is responsible for radio communication with the general public. My job is to monitor and keep the personnel at the station in the loop on anything that might require them to launch. It is with only a small amount of melodrama that I say this is a job that I've spent a lifetime preparing for.

* * *

"RESCUE 1603, RESCUE 1603, this is COMMSTA HONOLULU on 5696. Request ops and position."

"COMMSTA HONOLULU, RESCUE 1603. Ops normal. Position two zero degrees four two decimal five eight minutes north, one five six degrees three niner decimal niner six minutes west. We have located the ELT on the ground at Kahului Airport and are RTB."

"RESCUE 1603, COMMSTA HONOLULU. Copy all. COMMSTA HONOLULU out."

It's a cool winter night in Southern California, circa 1989. I'm still living at my parents' place while attending commuter college. It's 2230 local, 0630 UTC. Right after Deutsche Welle signed off at 0550 UTC, I tuned my Sony ICF 2010 to 5696 kHz USB to try to hear if the Coast Guard had any aircraft in the air. 

Any Coast Guard vessel or aircraft underway or airborne needs to establish radio guard with a facility ashore and make regular ops and position reports. It's a way of ensuring that for each asset underway, someone ashore knows where they are, and can take appropriate action if they fail to check in. Cutters use their vessel name as their call sign; response boats and aircraft affix the call sign designator COAST GUARD to their hull number or tail number, respectively. During an active search and rescue (SAR) case, aircraft use the call sign designator RESCUE. 

On this particular evening, I've caught a C-130 out of Barber's Point, Hawaii on a SAR case to investigate an emergency locator transmitter. Coast Guard Communications Station Honolulu had its guard. An aircraft's ELT is a transmitter that sends a whooping sound on the aeronautical VHF guard frequency, 121.5 MHz. It can be actuated manually by the pilot or other aircraft occupant, or automatically if a crash is detected, although sometimes a hard landing is enough to set one off. That appears to be what's happened this time. The C-130 is returning to base. I stay with the frequency for one more ops report, followed shortly thereafter by the C-130 informing the COMMSTA that they were in the pattern and requesting that COMMSTA secure their guard. With that, it's time to turn in for the night. I have an eight o'clock class the next day.

* * *

As Sector Los Angeles gets the most vital information from the sailing vessel—position, vessel description, number of persons on board (POBs), whether all POBs have lifejackets and whether they're wearing them—I take it all down. Once Sector is satisfied that they have all the basics, they request the mariner shift from channel 16 to channel 22A, the Coast Guard's primary liaison frequency for the general public.

This is my cue. I have everything I need. The hail went out as a PAN-PAN, a level of distress less urgent than a MAYDAY, but taking on water is a major SAR case. I've gone through enough training to know what happens next. Without hesitation, I flip the switch guard and toggle the SAR alarm.

* * *

Founded in 1939, the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary is a uniformed service made up of civilian volunteers who augment the Coast Guard's capabilities. The emphasis is on recreational boating safety, but properly qualified Auxiliarists can serve in any Coast Guard mission except combat and law enforcement. The Auxiliary has something for everyone, with friendly vessel examiners, public education courses, and safety patrols in privately owned vessels making up the organization's very visible face. I've found my niche in working directly with the active-duty Coast Guard.

Qualification for the radio watchstander program involves training over the course of ten supervised four-hour watches, completion of a personnel qualification standard (PQS), and a board of review consisting of members of the unit with which the Auxiliarist will be serving. The PQS is a three-ring binder with several dozen pages of instructions and proficiency checks that need to be signed off by someone who already holds the qualification. 

There was a lot to absorb in the PQS. The parts about radio procedure and channel allocation came pretty easily to someone who's been a radio hobbyist since the late '70s. The specifics of how to handle a distress call took a little more study. And despite having grown up in Southern California and having sailed extensively around Long Beach, there was still a lot to learn in terms of the local knowledge requirements. 

With the mentorship of Oscar and John, two experienced fellow Auxiliarists, those ten supervised watches flew by. Before I knew it, I had a PQS full of sign-offs, a passing grade on my board of review, and a schedule of watches to maintain.

* * *

Within seconds of me hitting the SAR alarm, station personnel were rushing down the hall and into the radio room. First to reach the radio room was Machinist's Mate Second Class (MK2) Garett Goldsberry. I started describing the distress call, but couldn't even hear myself over the blaring alarm. Garett reached past me and toggled the switch to turn off the SAR alarm.

"We've got a Hunter 31 taking on water near Two Harbors."

"Do you have their position?"

"Yeah. It's all right here," I replied, showing him my notes.

MK2 Goldsberry grabbed the sheet out of my hand. "This looks good. If we launch, I'll just give it to the coxswain."

A quick phone call to Sector confirmed it. "Okay, we're launching."

A few minutes later, a US Coast Guard Response Boat Medium, hull number 45652, cast off its moorings and departed the boat basin for Angels Gate and on toward Santa Catalina Island.

* * *

Housed in a long, narrow building on Base Los Angeles/Long Beach, Station Los Angeles has a fleet of 45-foot Response Boat Mediums (RBMs) and 29-foot Response Boat Smalls (RBSs). In everyday usage, however, they're rarely called RBMs and RBSs; they're simply 45s and 29s. With berthing spaces and a galley, and round-the-clock staffing, the station in some ways resembles a city firehouse. Just as it is at your neighborhood firehouse, the men and women who work and eat and sleep at the station need to be constantly ready for an alarm that could go off any time of day or night. It's baked into the very ethos of the organization: Semper Paratus—always ready. 

The 45s are truly impressive machines. Diesel powered, the boats have twin jet drives whose nozzles can be independently vectored through 180 degrees of arc. There are also hinge-mounted buckets aft of the nozzles that when deployed will vector the jets' thrust forward. A 45 can maneuver seemingly at will, stop on a dime, and work in shallow water. With a top speed of over 40 knots, it can also be on scene in a hurry.

* * *

"SECTOR LOS ANGELES, COAST GUARD 45652 on CG 113."

"COAST GUARD 45652, SECTOR."

"SECTOR from the 652, we are underway for the SAR case off Two Harbors. Request you take my guard."

"652, SECTOR assumes your guard at 1220 local. Ops and position every three zero minutes. Request your ETA on scene."

"SECTOR from the 652, we estimate on scene in four zero minutes."

"652, SECTOR. Copy four zero minutes. SECTOR out."

The Coast Guard uses VHF marine for communicating with the public, but for internal communications, they have a number of allocated VHF and UHF channels using P25, a digital voice mode that supports encryption. Sector has taken our 45's guard on CG 113, at 163.175 MHz. Sector typically takes the 45s' guard on active SAR cases—the better to coordinate the search and rescue effort—but for scheduled patrols the Station boats will often establish their guard with the watchstander back at Station itself.

* * *

The centerpiece of the radio desk at Station Los Angeles is the Rescue 21 console, a system developed for the Coast Guard by General Dynamics intended to "take the 'search' out of search and rescue". One screen shows a grid view, with VHF and UHF channels arranged in rows and transmit/receive towers in columns. A second screen gives a map view of the area of responsibility. Icons on the map mark the tower locations. The towers have integrated automatic direction finding; when a transmission is heard, lines of bearing are drawn on the screen from each tower. From my position, I can hear receivers at five different mountaintop locations throughout Southern California and can operate the transmitters on three of them.

On my fourth supervised watch, we had guard for one of our 45s. John, one of the Auxiliarists responsible for my training, was showing me how he takes ops and position reports. "Mind if I try the next one?" I asked.

"Go right ahead," he said.

Thirty minutes later I pressed the push-to-talk button. "COAST GUARD 45747, STATION LA on CG 113. Request ops and position."

There was no response. "Oh, wait a minute," I said. "Their patrol today is at Two Harbors?"

"That's right," John said.

The transmit/receive tower on Catalina Island has excellent coverage of almost all of the Southern California waters. It's effectively our default transmit tower at Station, and the one currently selected on the Rescue 21 grid.

"The island has some pretty steep terrain. If they're tucked in up against the isthmus, they might be blocked from the Catalina tower. Maybe we could try another tower."

"Give it a try."

With the mouse, I traced a line along the CG 113 row until I landed on the column for Laguna Peak, 425 meters above the waves in the Santa Monica Mountains between Malibu and Oxnard.

"COAST GUARD 45747, STATION LA on CG 113. Request ops and position."

"STATION LA, COAST GUARD 45747. Ops normal, position Two Harbors."

"747, STATION LA. Copy all. STATION LA out."

"Hey, that comes pretty naturally," John said.

"Thanks," I said, smiling. All those years of shortwave listening, all those nights monitoring 5696 and 8984, all the study for the Technician and General licenses, here I was getting a chance to put it into practice.

* * *

Forty minutes after leaving the Port of Los Angeles, exactly when they said they would, Coast Guard 45652 arrived on scene. It was a lightning-fast crossing of the Catalina Channel, but the Los Angeles County Lifeguard boat based in the Isthmus of Catalina Island—a good fifteen nautical miles closer—was there first. Besides the Coast Guard, numerous local agencies provide overlapping SAR capabilities in these waters. The redundancy provides a margin of safety. When in doubt, it's better to launch and subsequently RTB on a case that's being handled than it is to let precious minutes tick by before realizing that more resources are needed.

"SECTOR from the 652. Ops normal, position three three hyphen two five decimal seven eight north, one one eight hyphen two six decimal four seven west. The lifeguards have a pump aboard the sailboat and they're keeping up with the ingress of water."

"652, SECTOR LA. Roger, good copy. You can RTB. SECTOR out."

The owner of the Serene Horizon was a member of a commercial towing service. With the pump keeping the water under control, the towing service was able to get the stricken sailboat back to its home port of Long Beach. It was a long and exhausting day, but everyone went home.

On the way back, Coast Guard 45652 would be given two other taskings. It wasn't until almost the end of my watch that the crew finally refueled the boat (so as to be ready with full bunkers for the next mission) and moored up in the basin. The crew looked tired, but they took the time to thank the civilian volunteer in an Operational Dress Uniform who spent the afternoon keeping an ear to the airwaves. 

In all honesty, we didn't save a life that day, but we were part of the process. To a mariner who was having a bad day, the sight of a lifeguard boat and a 45 had to be reassuring. Just a week later it would be my turn to have a bad day, and although we ultimately made it back to the marina under our own power, it was a good feeling knowing that help was only a channel 16 hail away. To be a small part of making that possible is an even better feeling.

Coast Guard 45747, home port: Station Los Angeles/Long Beach

A 45-foot Response Boat Medium underway

The author at US Coast Guard Station Los Angeles/Long Beach

The author's old Sony ICF-2010

If you have an interest in safety on the water and are looking for an opportunity to give something back to the community, visit https://www.cgaux.org/units.php to find a Coast Guard Auxiliary flotilla near you.

This story is based on an actual incident, but details about the vessel in distress have been changed for privacy purposes. Also, there were three C-130s assigned to Barber's Point in the '80s. It's been thirty-five years; I don't remember for sure if 1603 was the actual one I heard, or whether the airport where the ELT was found was Kahului or one of the the other airports on the islands neighboring Oahu.