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By Root 711 0

or tug), or whether the problem could be better solved by instructing any other boats in the vicinity to assist. All vessels must, by law, note and act on a Mayday call and obey the coastguard’s instructions to lend assistance. There are other emergency measures. Electronic beacons (EPIRB) that trigger on contact with water, sealed self-righting life-rafts, parachute rockets, radar reflectors and mobile phones. And, as of 1999, all ships should be fitted with GMDSS (the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System, an offshoot of the Global Positioning System, or GPS) which sends Mayday calls electronically, so overriding even the need for personal radio contact with the coastguard. None of the methods are completely fail-safe; none of them can guarantee to save lives, but collectively they do at least mean that anyone in trouble at sea has a far greater chance of surviving than sailors a century ago. These procedures, and their accompanying bureaucracy, have made the sea a safer place. So has its marginalisation; fewer people use it, those uses have changed, and those who ‘follow the sea’ theoretically do so in stronger, sturdier boats.

Not that any safety measure, however sophisticated, can override the waywardness of human nature. Insurance companies now recognise a phenomenon they have loosely termed Volvo Syndrome. The safer cars, boats or planes become, the more risks people take. Those who buy a Volvo are inclined to drive faster, rely more on the brakes and behave more aggressively than they probably would if they were driving something less impenetrable. The same impulse applies to boats. Swaddled in the comfortable technology of satellite systems, radar positioning, faxed forecasts and survival suits, sailors, particularly amateur ones, behave more recklessly than they would have done fifty years ago. In the last ten years, the number of drownings in British waters have remained stable at around 250 per year, but the number of incidents involving the coastguard, RAF or RNLI have more than doubled from 5,300 in 1986 to 11,300 in 1996. Likewise, the majority of accidents at sea do not involve merchant ships or fishing vessels, but ‘leisure users’, pleasure trippers who sail into unpleasant waters. The coastguard offers several explanations for the rise, such as a spate of warm summers, cheaper technology, and a growing number of sailors beguiled by quick charter deals. As they point out with some exasperation, these new fair-weather sailors are not always competent to take charge of a boat. Mayday calls (which are only supposed to be made when there is ‘grave and imminent danger’ to life or vessel) come in from crews who have run out of fuel or are feeling seasick. Even the lighthouses have unwittingly contributed to this sense of false security. For a long while, the English side of the Channel was better lit than the French side. Because of this, much of the passing traffic hugged the northern shoreline and, with so many vessels travelling such a narrow path, the number of collisions increased. Any benefit the lights had brought was therefore abruptly cancelled out; for every advance, there was also a retreat.

Besides, no instrument, however reliable or well-maintained, is infallible. If the microchips fail or the battery runs down (and about a third of all incidents reported to the coastguard do involve mechanical failure of one form or another) all sailors have to fall back on the skills of using compasses, stars, paper charts. The old techniques, like sailing with celestial navigation, or with sextants and chronometers, are still taught by professional organisations (the Royal and Merchant navies, the Royal Yachting Association). But, for amateur mariners sailing in inshore waters, there is in theory no reason why they should do more than study their GPS. With computers to fall back on, fewer people are learning their sums with quite the same rigour as in the past. As the law currently stands, there is nothing to stop anyone, however expert or incompetent, sailing the seven corners of the globe with less experience