A time to give procedure a miss?
It can’t be over-stressed that, all things being equal, a Mayday broadcast is best carried out in accordance with the well-publicised correct procedure for disseminating the information, complete with MMSI number, if you have one.
There are excellent reasons for this. However, should you be needed elsewhere to try and save the ship, or your batteries are about to submerge with total power loss so that seconds count, you could give your position immediately after ‘Mayday’.
If a rescuer hears, ‘Mayday, mayday, mayday, 50° 13’ North, 5° 43’ West’, followed by increasingly garbled data ending in a crackle of static, he is better placed to help than if he hears, ‘Mayday, mayday, mayday, Yacht Sinker, Sinker, Sinker, Mayday, Sinker, my position is…’ then silence.
Of course, if you have a DSC radio with a red button and you’ve activated it, the yacht’s position should be out there anyway, but there’s no reassurance like seeing the ‘transmit’ light come on and speaking into the mike.