DISTRESS ASSIST RESPONSE TRAINING (DART) U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Telecommunications

The primary responsibility of a marine radio watchstander is to monitor and respond to mariners seeking assistance. Auxiliary Telecommunications Operators (TCOs) are trained and certified to handle both distress (MAYDAY) and non-distress radio calls. DISTRESS ASSIST RESPONSE TRAINING 2

TCOs must demonstrate handling such calls as part of their Personal Qualification Standards signoff to be certified as a TCO. As distress calls are infrequent, practice is needed to keep skills sharp. 3

DISTRESS ASSIST RESPONSE TRAINING This Program – Distress Assist Response Training (DART) provides ongoing training and practice for handling such mariner calls. DART is equally effected at Auxiliary Communications Units (ACU) or a comms watch aboard surface or air Operational Facilities on patrols. 4

DISTRESS ASSIST RESPONSE TRAINING Oceanside California Flotilla has developed a distress call response drill to keep their staff of TCOs responding skill at the highest level. Their ACU is manned by a single TCO watchstander each weekend day with different watch teams each weekend. 5

DISTRESS ASSIST RESPONSE TRAINING 6 Flotilla Oceanside Harbor ACU 58 Flotilla Members 12 TCO/Watchstanders 60+ hours/month watch

DISTRESS ASSIST RESPONSE TRAINING The Sunday watch prepares a detailed written distress scenario and calls the Saturday watch on the ACU’s phone announcing the drill. The calling watch acts as the distressed boater and respond to the information asked by the ACU’s duty watch. 7

DISTRESS ASSIST RESPONSE TRAINING When completed, the ACU duty watch simulates reporting the information to the Sector by calling the ‘distress’ watch to relay the information. This serves as a check on the accuracy of the distress information obtained against the written distress scenario of the distress caller. 8

DISTRESS ASSIST RESPONSE TRAINING A hot wash between the TCOs concludes the drill by covering accuracy of information recorded to confident voice inflection. This drill is repeated the next day with the Saturday watch calling the Sunday duty watch with a new scenario. 9

DISTRESS ASSIST RESPONSE TRAINING As weekend watch teams are mixed each month, a large variety of scenarios are generated for these drills. All TCO watchstanders meet quarterly to review the overall distress response quality and further improvements in the drill exercises. 10

DISTRESS ASSIST RESPONSE TRAINING A variation of this drill involves two surface OPFAC’s on patrol, one serving as the distressed vessel the other the rescue vessel. The distress vessel requests help via cell phone to the ACU who relays the information via cell phone to the rescue vessel to execute a simulated rescue. 11

DISTRESS ASSIST RESPONSE TRAINING DART may be conducted over VHF-FM radio only with agreement of the Coast Guard Order Issuing Authority. All VHF-FM traffic MUST be preceded with the phrase “THIS IS A DRILL” repeated three times. While cell phones are not as realistic, drills can be conducted more often. 12

DISTRESS ASSIST RESPONSE TRAINING Operational unit can adjust the frequency of drills to fit their needs. DART drills may be conducted as often as every watch. It is strongly recommended DART drills be conducted at least quarterly. 13

DISTRESS ASSIST RESPONSE TRAINING The overall objective of DART is the ongoing training and practice of calm, professional, confident, and accurate response to actual distress calls. 14

DISTRESS ASSIST RESPONSE TRAINING Comments Q & A 15