Channel 16

VHF 156.8 MHz: the international hailing and distress channel the Coast Guard monitors.

Sixteen is the channel everyone guards: the Coast Guard, commercial traffic, and every well-run pleasure boat with the radio on. Call a vessel or a marina there, then shift to a working channel; distress traffic owns 16 outright.

Keep it clean: radio checks and chatter clog the channel someone may be trying to scream on. And teach the crew where the radio is and what 16 means, because the day it matters, the usual radio operator may be the person in the water.

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Put the words to work

Vocabulary is easier at the helm.

The free South Carolina boater safety course teaches all of this in twelve chapters with a sixty question practice exam, and when you are ready for the water itself, one form gets you rental quotes from local operators.

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