SMCP Part A - Distress, SAR, Medical and Urgency Traffic

1. Overview

Source: IMO Standard Marine Communication Phrases (SMCP), Resolution A.918(22), adopted 29 Nov. 2001 - Part A / AI External Communication Phrases: AI/1 Distress traffic (1.1 Distress communications, 1.2 Search and Rescue communications), AI/1.3 Requesting medical assistance, AI/2 Urgency traffic.

Syllabus: Anexo 2-B (SMCP Res. A.918(22) na bibliografia) - Anexo 2-A, item VI.1.4.1 - Frases de comunicacao externa (parte A).

Part A of the SMCP covers, in the source's own words, "Phrases applicable in external communications from ship to shore, shore to ship and ship to ship as required by STCW 1978, as revised, Table A-II/1, as well as Phrases applicable on board vessels in conversations between Pilots and bridge teams as required by Regulation 14(4) of Chapter V of SOLAS 1974, as revised." This chapter takes the four AI sets that deal with a vessel in trouble: distress traffic (AI/1), search and rescue (AI/1.2), requesting medical assistance, and urgency traffic (AI/2). Every phrase below is a fixed sentence, and this chapter keeps the wording exactly as the source prints it, organized by situation.

✎ Observação de leitura — não é texto da fonte: Two notation habits recur through the whole source and are worth naming once. First, almost every phrase is written with a double subject, "I / MV ...", because the same sentence serves a vessel speaking for itself and a station speaking about a named vessel — the table rows keep this exactly as printed. Second, "..." marks a blank the speaker fills in (a position, a number, a UTC time); it is not an omission in this apostila.

The tables that follow use two columns: Ref reproduces the numbering the source prints for each line (including gaps and oddities in that numbering, noted where they occur), and Phrase reproduces the phrase itself, verbatim.

2. Distress Traffic — General Rules (AI/1)

Before any of the situational phrases, the source sets two rules that apply to the whole of AI/1. The first concerns silence on the air: the station controlling distress traffic — or any other station — may impose radio silence on stations that interfere, using a single fixed phrase.

The second rule concerns position: distress traffic must open by stating the position of the vessel in distress, following the general position-and-bearing phrases of the SMCP, unless the position is already carried by the DSC distress alert.

3. Distress Communications (AI/1.1)

Eleven situations make up AI/1.1, in the order the source prints them: fire/explosion, flooding, collision, grounding, list, sinking, disabled and adrift, armed attack/piracy, undesignated distress, abandoning vessel, and person overboard. Each is its own closed set of phrases — questions the other station may ask, and the fixed answers available.

3.1 Fire, Explosion

This is also the first place the source uses its tilde (~) convention: a lead line ends without a full stop, and each ~ line that follows supplies one alternative way of finishing it. This apostila keeps the tilde exactly as printed in every table below, rather than writing out full sentences or replacing it with an ellipsis.

3.2 Flooding

3.3 Collision

3.4 Grounding

3.5 List — Danger of Capsizing

3.6 Sinking

3.7 Disabled and Adrift

3.8 Armed Attack / Piracy

3.9 Undesignated Distress

3.10 Abandoning Vessel

3.11 Person Overboard

The source numbers this set with a gap — it runs .8, .8.1, .8.2, then jumps straight to .10 — kept exactly as printed rather than renumbered.

4. Search and Rescue Communication (AI/1.2)

AI/1.2 covers four moments of a SAR case, in the source order: the general SAR exchange that specifies or supplements a distress call, acknowledging or relaying a MAYDAY, the On-scene Co-ordinator running the search, and closing the operation out.

4.1 SAR Communications (specifying or supplementary to 1.1)

This is where the source asks for the identifiers and conditions a rescue depends on: the vessel's MMSI number, whether its EPIRB is on, whether it transmitted a DSC distress alert, and the weather in its position — wind in Beaufort force, visibility, sea and swell, and current. One line in the source prints an unnumbered question, and another prints a doubled reference number (".4 5.1") — both kept here exactly as printed.

4.2 Acknowledgement and / or Relay of SAR - Messages

4.3 Performing / Co-ordinating SAR - Operations

4.4 Finishing with SAR - Operations

5. Requesting Medical Assistance (AI/1.3)

The source prints this set under the heading "AI/13 Requesting medical assistance" — the recorte do edital and the chapter map both read it as AI/1.3, and this apostila follows that reading for organization while keeping every phrase itself verbatim.

5.1 Medical Assistance Phrases

6. Urgency Traffic (AI/2)

Urgency traffic is not distress: the source defines it in a single line — "Safety of a vessel (other than distress)." — and opens it with the same position rule that opens distress traffic, this time for the calling vessel. It groups the phrases into three situations: technical failure, cargo, and ice damage.

6.1 Technical Failure

6.2 Cargo

6.3 Ice Damage