- LONDON (AP) -- SOS: Morse code officially goes out of use Monday for
most ships in distress at sea.
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- The International Maritime Organization
set Feb. 1 as its target date to replace dots and dashes with a satellite
system -- the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System -- that can pinpoint
the location of a ship signalling for help.
-
- The new system is mandatory for all international
freighters over 300 gross tonnes, all passenger vessels and self-propelled
oil drilling rigs. Coastal freighters, most fishing boats and pleasure
craft are exempt.
-
- But Lloyd's List, a maritime industry
newspaper published in London, estimated last December that a quarter or
more of the world's ships still had not been fitted with the necessary
equipment, which costs a minimum of $30,000 US.
-
- Panama, which has the world's largest
registry of ships, has announced fines of up to $10,000 for ships which
fail to comply, Lloyd's List reported.
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- The Global Maritime Distress and Safety
System has been phased in beginning in 1992.
-
- Distress signals are beamed from a ship
to an Inmarsat satellite, which relays the alert to a rescue co-ordinating
station on the ground. The ground facilities are at Raisting, Germany;
Goonhilly Downs, England; Perth, Australia and Niles Canyon, Calif.
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- The locating system is accurate within
200 metres, the IMO says.
-
- It was 100 years ago that a radio message
first set off a rescue mission at sea. A ship called for assistance when
it saw the steamship Elbe run aground off Dover, England, the IMO said.
-
- The SOS was adopted as the international
distress call at an international conference convened three months after
the Titanic sank in 1912.
-
- According to the IMO, the signal was
adopted because it was easily recognizable in Morse -- three dots, three
dashes and three dots -- and not because SOS stood for anything such as
"save our souls."
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