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I own a 28 foot commercial vessel. Transport Canada requires me to have two
VHF radios, one of which must be VHF-DSC and which must be monitored
continuously on channel 16. So in effect, I have a standby VHF and a working
VHF which is what I use for general comms. I have not, however, been told
that I must monitor channel 13 on my second VHF. Likely because the
commercial traffic is pretty scare in these parts, I have never heard any
objections from the Canadian Coast Guard about using channel 16 as a general
hailing channel. Mind you, when I do hail someone, I always ask them to
switch to an available channel for general comms. The Coast Guard gets very
testy about mariners using channel 16 for general banter.

Of course the rules may be entirely different in southern Canada where there
is a lot more action going on.

To address a comment made by George Huxtable in an earlier post, regarding
the use of VHF to mediate interactions between vessels, I do not hesitate to
use it if I am transiting the narrow channel which leads from the upper to
the lower portion of our bay in fog and/or at night, if I am aware of any
large ships in the area. In fact on several occasions, when transiting the
channel, I have hailed Coast Guard and commercial vessels to let them know
that I am there and to give them my position. It just makes sense.

The points the group has made about radar reflectors is sobering. I need to
take another look at mine.


Robert
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill" 
To: 
Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2007 5:34 PM
Subject: [NavList 2864] Re: Fatal interaction between yacht and ferry.


>
>> From: "George Huxtable" 
>
>> Has the obligation to keep a listening watch on ch. 16 now
>> vanished, anyway?
>
> Some excellent points.  Answering your question (from memory) in the USA:
>
> All vessels 60 feet or over must have VHF.
>
> Pleasure craft under 60 ft. are not required to have VHF.
>
> I was told (by a freshly minted 100-ton master) commercial vessels must
> have
> two radios, one to monitor 16 and one to monitor 13.
>
> The Coast Guard monitors 16.  There seems to be a push on by the Coast
> Guard
> (Lake Michigan at least) over the past few years to encourage pleasure
> craft
> to hail each other on channel 9, freeing up 16 for serious communications.
>
> Regarding Lu's point, I too find a commercial vessel is more likely to
> respond to a channel 13 hail--if for no other reason the hailing craft
> knows
> enough to use 13 and is taken a bit more seriously.
>
> Bill
>
>
> >
>



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