New Coast Guard system already passed first test

ATLANTIC BEACH - When a mayday call was made by a boater south of Bogue Inlet last week, the Coast Guard's new Rescue 21 communications system proved its effectiveness.

A family of four was safely rescued from their sinking vessel on June 21 after the system helped the Coast Guard to better pinpoint the mariner's location and narrow the search area.

"Rescue 21 put us in a position where we were able to save lives without spending a lot of time searching extraneous areas," said Coast Guard Senior Chief Jim Moore.

The new system provides advanced technology that includes direction-finding equipment to locate mariners in distress using lines of bearing.

During the June 21 call, Coast Guard responders were able to use two lines of bearing from towers at Otway and Sneads Ferry to narrow the search for the boater to the area of the "C" buoy marking the danger zone at Camp Lejeune.

The father of the family, which included a 9-year-old child, initially called Seatow in Beaufort on his VHF radio and indicated the boat was taking on water near the "sea" buoy. Without the direction-finding capabilities, Coast Guard personnel could have faced searching a much larger area, with "sea" buoys marking entrances to channels at Beaufort and Bogue Inlets, Moore said.

Instead, the Coast Guard was able to quickly launch a rescue boat from Station Emerald Isle and locate the family, preventing a situation that could have become dire. The rescue boat arrived to find three members of the family clinging to the capsized boat and the other in the water. All four were wearing life jackets.

The Coast Guard's implementation of the Rescue 21 system began in 2006 and has been phased in across the country since then.

A ceremony was held Tuesday at Station Fort Macon to mark Sector North Carolina's acceptance of the system.

Six of the nine towers for Sector North Carolina's system are now in place, with a seventh scheduled to go up in August and the two remaining sites to follow soon after.

There are some coverage gaps in the northern Outer Banks area, but Rescue 21 is now fully operational along the rest of North Carolina's coast.

"We are here today to mark another milestone in the legendary Coast Guard history in North Carolina," said Capt. June Ryan, commander of Coast Guard Sector North Carolina.

Rescue 21 provides an updated, leading-edge Very High Frequency - Frequency Modulated (VHF-FM) communications system, replacing the National Distress Response System installed and deployed during the 1970s.

When fully deployed, it will cover 42,000 miles of coastline and provide coverage throughout the coastal continental United States, Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands as well as modified coverage in Alaska and along the Western Rivers.

"Rescue 21 will provide unprecedented capabilities to our nation's lifesavers," said Lee Wright of General Dynamics, a partner with the Coast Guard on the project.

Wright said the greater accuracy provided in locating mariners in distress will help the Coast Guard in its life-saving mission while also reducing the time its search and rescue personnel are at risk.

Ryan said the system can also identify suspected hoax calls, eliminating the unnecessary use of time and resources and keeping Coast Guard personnel available for true emergencies and calls for assistance.

Jannette Pippin can be contacted at 910-382-2557 or jpippin@freedomenc.com.