When a marine radio transmission begins with "Sécurité, sécurité, sécurité" (pronounced 'Say-cur-i-tay', after the French word), it means that what follows is important safety information. The most common use of this is by coast radio stations before the broadcast of navigational warnings and meteorological information.

It is normal practice to broadcast the Sécurité call itself on a distress and listening frequency such as VHF Channel 16 or MF 2182 kHz, and then change frequency to a working channel for the body of the messages.

Although mostly used by coast radio stations, there is nothing to stop individual craft broadcasting their own Sécurité messages where appropriate. An example of such appropriate use may include a yacht becalmed or any vessel adrift or unable to manoeuvre near other craft or shipping lanes.

Mayday, pan-pan, securite

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Of the three distress and urgency calls, Sécurité is the least urgent after Mayday (grave and imminent danger to life or to the vessel, requiring immediate assistance) and Pan-pan (emergency on board but no immediate danger to anyone's life or to the vessel itself).

Example usage

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A typical format for an initial call is as follows:

Sécurité, sécurité, sécurité. All ships, all ships, all ships. This is station identifier. For a weather forecast and important navigational warnings for the such-and-such area, please tune to frequency or channel number. This is station identifier out.

See also

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• Mayday
• Pan-pan