Rescue 21

Rescue 21 is the US Coast Guard’s advanced command, control, and communications system, primarily for use in search and rescue (SAR). Although it had been undergoing conceptual development for some years, Rescue 21 was funded and deployed in the aftermath of the tragic Morning Dew incident off Charleston in 1997 to improve the Coast Guard’s ability to assist mariners in distress and to save lives and property at sea. Previously, the agency had relied on traditional VHF-FM and HF radios to communicate with mariners in distress. The Coast Guard also had a few ancient radio direction finders. But, for the most part, it relied on mariners to tell the Coast Guard where they were. The Coast Guard would then send ships and aircraft to search the area identified by the mariner. If the mariner was in error as to where he or she was located, or did not include that information in the distress message, the Coast Guard would have to search a large area in hopes of locating the mariner. This was highly inefficient and often unsuccessful. Early on the morning of December 29, 1997, the recreational sailing vessel Morning Dew struck the rock jetty outside the shipping channel into the Port of Charleston, South Carolina. The owner/operator was able to transmit a faint, but audible call stating “US Coast Guard” before the radio failed. The Coast Guard watchstander in Charleston received the call, but did not fully understand its import and was unable to determine the exact location of the incident. A subsequent replay and enhancement of the radio call revealed that it commenced with the word “Mayday”, but this had not been detected by the watchstander. The wreck of the sailboat and the bodies of the four persons on board were found later that day. The high visibility of that tragic incident vastly speeded up the funding for and deployment of the Rescue 21 system. The system includes modern radios, a vast expansion of direction-finding capability, simultaneous monitoring of multiple radio channels, a high level of interoperability, and enhanced clarity, recording, and playback capability, among other things. The goal is to promptly locate the site of a distress and to take the search out of search and rescue.