I avoided the VHF for an embarrassingly long time. It sat there muttering on channel 16 while I made every marina arrangement by phone and felt slightly fraudulent about it. The day I finally had to call a lock that would only answer on the radio, I fumbled the call, said the wrong thing, and got there in the end. It was nowhere near as frightening as I had built it up to be. If you are putting off learning the radio, this is the gentle push.
Why you cannot dodge it forever
In France, plenty of things only happen over VHF. Locks open on the radio. Fuel berths and busy marinas want a call before you arrive. The coastguard listens on 16, not on your phone. And if the day ever goes badly wrong, the radio is the fastest way to get help to you, because a DSC distress call sends your position automatically. A phone in your pocket cannot do that.
So the radio is not an optional extra. It is a core skill, and like most core skills it is far simpler than the worry around it.
A word on the licence
Before the practical bit, know the rule. To operate a marine VHF you are meant to hold an operator's certificate (in the UK, the RYA Short Range Certificate), and the set itself needs a licence. If your radio has DSC, it also needs a unique 9-digit MMSI number programmed in, issued by your national authority (Ofcom in the UK, the FCC in the US). Get the MMSI right and registered, because that number is what tells the coastguard who is calling. If you are bringing a UK boat across, the wider paperwork is covered in my VHF channels in France guide, which also maps which channel does what.
Switching on and the basics
Find these controls and you can use any marine VHF: on/off and volume, the squelch (turn it up until the hiss stops, then back off slightly), the channel selector, and the transmit button on the handset. You press to talk, release to listen. You cannot do both at once, which is the single most common beginner error: people talk over the reply because they keep the button held down.
Set the power to high (usually 25 watts) for distance, low (1 watt) for short range in a marina so you do not block half the coast for a berth request. Keep a listening watch on 16 whenever you are not using another channel.
Making a routine call
Here is the shape of an ordinary call, the one you will make to a marina or a lock. Say the name of who you are calling, then who you are, then wait.
"Capitainerie de [port], capitainerie de [port], this is sailing yacht [name], [name], over."
They reply and tell you to go to a working channel. You both switch, you make your request (a berth, a side to come alongside, a lock passage), you confirm, and you finish with "out". Keep it short and let go of the button so they can answer. A few French set phrases smooth the whole thing; the exact lines for asking a berth or a lock are in my VHF French phrases crib sheet, and most French marina and lock staff handle English happily anyway.
The procedure words are worth knowing because they keep calls short and unambiguous: "over" means I have finished and expect a reply, "out" means the conversation is finished, "say again" means repeat, "roger" means received and understood.
The distress procedure: learn it before you need it
This is the part that justifies the whole licence. There are three levels, and they are not interchangeable.
- Mayday: grave and imminent danger to life or vessel (sinking, fire, person overboard you cannot recover). Highest priority.
- Pan-pan: urgent, but life is not in immediate danger (engine failure drifting onto a hazard, a sick crew member).
- Securite: a safety message, such as a navigation warning.
For a real Mayday, the fastest action on a DSC set is to lift the cover and press the red distress button for several seconds. That sends a digital alert on channel 70 carrying your MMSI and GPS position, sounds alarms on every DSC radio in range, and switches your set to 16 for the voice message. Then you speak on 16:
"Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is [boat name] [boat name] [boat name]. Mayday [boat name]. My position is [latitude and longitude, or bearing and distance from a known point]. [Nature of distress]. [Number of people on board]. I require immediate assistance. Over."
The French coastguard, CROSS, monitors 16 around the clock and coordinates rescue. From a mobile phone the sea emergency number in France is 196, but the radio is faster and gives your position, so reach for the radio first. Write the Mayday script on a card and tape it next to the set. In a real emergency, with adrenaline running, you will be glad to read rather than remember.
Which channels to memorise in France
You do not need to learn the whole channel plan, but a handful earn their place in your head. Channel 16 is the international calling and distress channel, monitored by CROSS, and you keep a listening watch on it. Channel 70 is reserved for DSC and is never used for voice; your radio uses it automatically. Channel 13 is the ship-to-ship bridge-to-bridge channel used for collision avoidance with commercial traffic, which matters in busy approaches. Marinas and locks each have their own working channels, listed in the pilot and usually painted on the breakwater, and they vary from port to port, so look them up rather than guess.
One French quirk worth knowing: the coastguard here is CROSS (Centre Regional Operationnel de Surveillance et de Sauvetage), and there are several regional CROSS stations covering different stretches of coast. They broadcast safety information and weather on VHF at set times, and they are the people who answer a distress call. Knowing the name is useful when you hear it on the radio and when you make a Pan-pan or Mayday, because they will identify themselves by it.
Practising without annoying everyone
You cannot rehearse a Mayday on the air, and you must never transmit a test distress call. But you can practise everything else. Listen on 16 and the marina channels for a few days and you will quickly absorb the rhythm. Make real, useful routine calls: book a berth, call a fuel berth, ask a lock. Each one builds the habit. The radio rewards repetition.
If your next big confidence step is going out alone, the VHF is non-negotiable kit; I treat it as core safety gear in my first solo day-sail in France guide. And the radio is one line in the wider safety setup that belongs in every first passage plan template you write.
Common beginner errors to avoid
A few mistakes turn up again and again with new radio users, and knowing them in advance saves the embarrassment.
- Holding the transmit button down while waiting for a reply. You cannot hear anything while you transmit, so let go and listen.
- Calling on a working channel before establishing contact. Make the initial call on 16 (or the listening channel), then move to a working channel once they answer.
- Treating channel 16 as a chat channel. It is for calling and distress only, kept clear and brief, so move ordinary conversation to a working channel quickly.
- Using high power for everything. In a marina, low power (1 watt) is enough and keeps the airwaves clear for others; save high power for distance.
- Forgetting to register the MMSI. An unregistered MMSI means a DSC distress alert reaches the coastguard with no boat details behind it, which slows the response when seconds count.
None of these are dangerous in themselves, but they mark you out as a newcomer and clutter a shared resource. A few clean calls and you will sound like you have been doing it for years.
The honest summary
Switch it on, set the squelch, watch 16. Learn the routine call and use it for real until it is boring. Learn the Mayday and Pan-pan scripts and tape them by the set. Get your licence and your MMSI sorted before the season. That is the whole of it. The radio is not a test you pass once; it is a habit you build, and the visiting crews who use it confidently were all, at some point, the person quietly dreading their first call.
