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‘mayday’

The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea | 2006 | 539 words | Copyright

‘mayday’, an international distress signal said to originate from the French m'aidez, meaning ‘help me’. It was made by radiotelephone from a vessel in distress on two internationally recognized frequencies, 2,182 kHz MF and Channel 16 (156.8 MHz) VHF, and many stations, both ashore and afloat, kept continuous watch on them. This manual system has now been superseded by the automated distress signals of the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System, which are still known as ‘may day’ calls.

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