If you have grown up sailing in British waters, you call "Solent Coastguard" or "Falmouth Coastguard" and you know what you are getting. Cross to France and the name changes, the structure changes, and the voice on the other end is broadcasting in French. The service is called CROSS, and once you understand how it is carved up you will know exactly who is listening when you key the radio off Normandy versus off the Cote d'Azur. This is worth sorting out before you leave the dock, not while you are taking on water.
What CROSS stands for, and what it does
CROSS is the Centre Regional Operationnel de Surveillance et de Sauvetage, the regional operational centre for surveillance and rescue. It is the French coastguard's coordination service. CROSS does the same job your home coastguard does: it runs search and rescue, coordinates the lifeboats (the SNSM in France) and any helicopters or naval assets, watches the big shipping lanes, broadcasts safety and weather information, and handles distress traffic. It is a state service, run under the maritime authorities, and it keeps a permanent listening watch on the international distress channel.
There is one structure for the whole of metropolitan France plus Corsica, divided into stations by stretch of coast.
The stations and the water they cover
There are five mainland CROSS stations plus a Corsican one, and each owns a defined length of coast. Knowing the boundaries tells you who answers.
- CROSS Gris-Nez sits near the Pas-de-Calais and covers the eastern Channel from the Franco-Belgian border down to Cap d'Antifer. It watches the Dover Strait traffic separation scheme, the busiest shipping lane in the world. Gris-Nez is also the designated point of entry for foreign rescue centres, so it is the station that talks to the UK and Belgian coastguards.
- CROSS Jobourg is out on the Cotentin peninsula and covers the central Channel from Cap d'Antifer to Mont-Saint-Michel, including the Casquets traffic separation scheme off the Channel Islands.
- CROSS Corsen, near Brest, covers the western Channel and the approaches from Mont-Saint-Michel down to Pointe de Penmarch, including the Ouessant (Ushant) traffic scheme where the big ships round the corner of Brittany.
- CROSS Etel covers the Bay of Biscay, from Penmarch all the way to the Spanish border. Etel also runs the national fisheries monitoring centre.
- CROSS La Garde, near Toulon, covers the French Mediterranean coast.
- The Corsican station works the waters around Corsica, with full cover focused on roughly 20 nautical miles offshore and reduced hours outside the season.
When you cross a boundary mid-passage, the station handling you changes, just as it does at home. If you are coasting from Brittany into Biscay you pass from Corsen to Etel somewhere around Penmarch.
Channel 16 and DSC: the heart of it
The distress and calling channel in France is the same as everywhere under the international system: VHF channel 16, on 156.8 MHz. CROSS keeps a continuous listening watch on 16. You make initial contact and any distress, urgency or safety call there.
Modern sets also have Digital Selective Calling, DSC, which uses channel 70 in the background. A DSC distress alert sends your identity and, if the set is linked to your GPS, your position, at the press of the dedicated button. CROSS stations are DSC equipped and a digital alert is the fastest way to raise them, because it carries your MMSI and position without you having to speak. For that to work your radio needs a programmed MMSI number. If you have not registered yours, sort it before you go, and the article on VHF licence, DSC and MMSI in France explains what visiting boats need.
After the channel 16 contact, CROSS will normally move you to a working channel to keep 16 clear.
The three levels of call
The procedure is international, so what you learned for the RYA Short Range Certificate applies unchanged in France. There are three priority levels.
Mayday is for grave and imminent danger to a vessel or person, life at risk. You say "Mayday" three times.
Pan-Pan is urgency, a serious situation that is not yet life-threatening: you have lost your engine in a rising sea, you have an injury that needs advice, you are concerned but not yet in mortal danger. You say "Pan-Pan" three times.
Securite, pronounced "say-cure-it-ay", is for safety messages, navigation warnings and the like. CROSS uses it to announce weather broadcasts and hazards.
The full word-by-word procedure, in both English and the French equivalents, is laid out in the companion article on the French distress and safety call procedure and on the language side in speaking VHF in France.
The 196 number, and when the phone beats the radio
France has something the UK does not have in the same form: a dedicated coastguard phone number. Dial 196 from a mobile and you reach CROSS directly. It has been the official sea emergency number since November 2014. CROSS can even ask a mobile operator to locate the phone of someone in trouble at sea.
That said, VHF is still the primary tool, and for good reason. A radio distress call is heard by every vessel within range, which is how nearby boats end up being the first on scene. A phone call only reaches CROSS. Use the radio first if you have it working; 196 is the backup when the VHF is down, when you are very close inshore, or when the matter is non-urgent advice rather than a developing emergency.
Weather and safety broadcasts
CROSS does not only answer calls, it talks to you. The stations broadcast Meteo-France weather bulletins and navigational warnings by voice, announced on channel 16 and then transmitted on a working channel, commonly 79 or 80, at fixed times through the day. The western stations add extra broadcasts in the summer season. The broadcasts are in French, so if you want to use them you will want a translation crib, and the structure of those bulletins is broken down in understanding the French coastal forecast.
The SNSM: who actually comes to get you
One difference from the UK that surprises people: the boats that come out are run by a charity, not the coastguard. The SNSM, the Societe Nationale de Sauvetage en Mer, is the French equivalent of the RNLI, a volunteer lifeboat service with stations dotted along the whole coast. CROSS coordinates the rescue; the SNSM lifeboat is often the asset that reaches you. You do not call the SNSM directly, you call CROSS, and CROSS tasks the nearest lifeboat or, for a casualty, a helicopter.
It is worth knowing this because the SNSM, like the RNLI, runs partly on goodwill and donations, and because a tow home is not automatically free in the way a life-saving rescue is. If you have flattened a battery or fouled a prop and there is no danger to life, that is a Pan-Pan or even a routine call, and CROSS may arrange commercial assistance rather than scramble a volunteer crew. Knowing the difference between "my life is at risk" and "I have an inconvenient breakdown" keeps the right resource available for the next boat that genuinely needs it.
A sensible setup before you sail
Programme your MMSI into the radio and check the DSC test works. Note which CROSS station owns the water you will be in, and the boundary you will cross. Save 196 in every crew member's phone. Keep channel 16 monitored underway, with a dual watch on your working channel if your set allows. Do all that and the French coastguard is no more mysterious than the one back home. The names are different, the language on the radio is French, but the system is the same proven international framework you already know, and CROSS is, in my experience, fast, professional and genuinely glad you called.
