THE 0400 MAYDAY CALL — A Coast Guard Memory

It was sometime in the early 1990s, when I was serving as the Assistant Search and Rescue Controller at Coast Guard Group San Francisco. Our command center was located on Yerba Buena Island, tucked into the middle of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge.

It was about four o’clock in the morning—0400, in Coast Guard time—and absolutely nothing was happening.

That was unusual.

Most watches had something going on: an overdue vessel, a disabled boat, a flare sighting, a report of someone in the water, or any of the countless other problems that could turn an ordinary night on San Francisco Bay into a search-and-rescue case. But this was one of those rare watches without a case.

The SAR Controller that night was a Chief Petty Officer. I was there as his assistant, along with the radioman standing communications watch. With the radios quiet and the hours crawling by, the three of us were shooting the shit, swapping sea stories, and doing whatever we could to stay awake.

Then, without warning, the silence shattered.

A loud voice came booming over the radio, clear as a bell:

“Mayday! Mayday!”

The sea stories stopped instantly.

Every head turned toward the radio. In a heartbeat, the sleepy 0400 watch became fully alert. Whatever joking had been going on disappeared as training and instinct took over.

Our radioman keyed the transmitter and answered in the calm, practiced voice the situation demanded:

“Vessel calling Mayday, this is Coast Guard Group San Francisco. What is the nature of your emergency?”

The vessel replied that they had run aground in the San Joaquin Valley.

That was certainly a problem, although not necessarily an immediate life-threatening emergency. We still had plenty of questions. We did not yet know the vessel’s exact position, how many people were aboard, whether anyone was injured, or whether the boat was taking on water.

I leaned toward the radioman.

“Ask them when they went aground.”

The answer came back:

“Ten o’clock last night.”

That gave everyone in the room pause.

They had been aground for roughly six hours. There had been no report of a fire, flooding, injury, or anyone in immediate danger. Whatever predicament they were in, they had apparently managed to tolerate it from 2200 until 0400 before finally declaring a Mayday.

The Chief looked toward the radioman.

“Ask them why they waited until now to call for help.”

The radio crackled, and the vessel answered:

“Because we ran out of beer.”

For one glorious second, nobody in the command center said a word.

Then the entire watch floor lost it.

Being aground for six hours had apparently been manageable. But once the beer was gone, the situation had finally crossed the threshold into a genuine maritime emergency.

Before our radioman could formulate a response, another voice came over the working frequency:

“Coast Guard Group San Francisco, this is the San Joaquin Sheriff’s Marine Unit. We’ll take this.”

The Chief somehow managed to hold back his laughter long enough to key the microphone.

“That works for us.”

The San Joaquin Sheriff’s Marine Unit took over the matter, and our nearly opened search-and-rescue case came to an end before it had truly begun.

I handled many real cases during my Coast Guard career. Some were routine. Some were complicated. Some ended happily, while others have remained with me for reasons that were anything but funny.

But for the rest of my life, this remained my favorite almost-case:

“Mayday! Mayday! We’re out of beer.”