SOME 300 representatives from government and industry in 21 countries attended a New York conference in October, 1970, to discuss ways of providing 100% search and rescue coverage for vessels needing help on the high seas.

For more than a decade, in fact, an invaluable service for dealing with emegencies of that type has been undergoing expansion by the U.S.

Coast Guard organisation and has become widely effective. Its aim is to get assistance as quickly as possible to shipping in distress or needing help, when the vessels are beyond the range of shore based rescue craft or helicopters.

Known as AMVER (Automated Merchant Vessel Report), the agency was being run in a small way in 1958, but at that time it wasrestricted to the coastal waters of America's eastern seaboard.

The purpose of AMVER is to apply modern techniques to the standard system of answering signals of distress from vessels far out at sea.

Such emergencies are usually met by diverting other ships to the scene, but until the development of AMVER there was no co-ordinated method of conducting these operations.

How does the system work? AMVER does not mount rescue operations itself, but stores data about ships ploughing the oceans and plots their progress. Vessels setting sail are invited to notify details (destination, course, speed, and so on) to the U.S. Coast Guard centre on Governors Island, New York.

Then, whenever an emergency arises, AMVER knows which ships are nearest to the one needing help, and this information is passed to search and rescue agencies, enabling them to evaluate the case and determine the quickest and most suitable way of responding to the SOS.

At the same time, it prevents other vessels from diverting from their course unnecessarily.

AMVER can be aptly described as a volun-tary, free, international mutual assistance service available to any nation during emergencies at sea. It increases the chances of aid at such times, yet reduces the number of calls upon vessels not favourably placed to give help, and cuts down the time lost by ships answering SOS calls.

Information about the search and rescue capabilities of each ship listed at the New York centre is also stored—whether the vessel is equipped with surface search radar, whether it is able to communicate with search aircraft by radio telephone, and whether there is a doctor aboard. Data of this sort can be of inestimable value in dealing with distress signals.

AMVER activities were extended to the mid- Atlantic 12 years ago, and were expanded to cover the whole of the North Atlantic in 1963.

Plotting the progress of each ship listed, however, was a laborious and comparatively slow process, for it had to be performed manually.

A major step forward was taken in 1965 when the system was computerised, the plotting of ships' progress being stored by an 'electronic brain', together with information about the aid each vessel can give.

As a result of this advancement, data required to deal with an emergency became available almost instantaneously, a point of vital importance when minutes may mean the differencebetween life and death.

Additional communication facilities have also been established in the South Atlantic, the Pacific, and many other areas not reached before.

Countries represented at the New York conference included Australia, the Bahamas, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Greece, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Liberia, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the U.S.S.R., and Yugoslavia. From this it is clear that AMVER has become worldwide.

The service is, indeed, available to anynation at times of emergencies at sea, and vessels of 65 maritime countries now participate.

Whenever asked to do so, the AMVER centre supplies computerised information about ships in the vicinity where help is wanted, enabling the most effective and quickest search and rescue operations to be set in motion at once.

In one month alone, 5,250 passages across the Atlantic were plotted. Pacific plottings during the same period totalled 2,946. The daily average was 789 and the record for one day was 867.

Messages sent within the AMVER system incur no charge to the ship or its owners, and no vessel listed at the centre is more obliged to provide help than a non-listed one. But the roll grows month by month, voluntary and unselfish support being given to promote international maritime security.

As well as getting aid to crippled ships as quickly as possible, AMVER plays an important role in obtaining medical help for injured or ill seamen, by notifying other ships within reach that a doctor is needed. Then the vessel which has sent out the distress signal can arrange a rendezvous with one carrying a doctor.

The medical man can go aboard to attend to the seaman, or the patient can be transferred to the doctor's ship. If hospital treatment is called for, the injured or sick mariner can be taken aboard a vessel making for a nearby port.

A typical AMVER incident occurred when a seaman aboard the s.s. Frubel Primes Paolo.

suffered a heart attack. A radio call went to the public health service hospital on Staten Island, New York, and medical advice was soon on its way back to the Belgian vessel. The hospital message called for the administration of, among other treatment, oxygen, but added that the patient should enter hospital as soon as possible.

When it was learned that the ship carried no oxygen, evacuation became critical if the man's life was to be saved. AMVER was then contacted, and the computer instantly revealed that two Italian vessels, the s.s. Cristqforo Columbo and the s.s. Raffaello, were nearby. The latter ship was due in New York two days later and agreed to take the patient aboard.

The evacuation took place within three hours of the initial radio contact between the two ships. The patient was transferred by motorboat in heavy seas and strong northerly wind, and was moved to a New York hospital as soon as the Raffaello docked.

AMVER has a leading part in dealing with various other kinds of emergencies on the high seas, bringing help to ships on fire or drifting helplessly in stormy waters. To make the service world-wide and as efficient as it can be, it uses more than 60 radio stations to collect sailing plans and position reports from ships at sea,these reports then being forwarded to the AMVER centre by radio.

Each month about 130 requests for 'surpics', as the information sheets are called, are received for dealing with actual or potential emergencies at sea. The international nature of the service is shown by the publication of AMVER instructions in 13 languages.

To sum up, this U.S. Coast Guard service is a computerised, global, merchant vessel plotting organisation, designed to provide information about ships' movements for use in search and rescue operations. It has received international recognition and has been endorsed and acclaimed by many bodies concerned with saving life on the high seas..