Some examples may help from my own experience with my 33 ft sailboat..
Once I was in the shipping channel very close to Golden Gate bridge.
Suddenly my ruddeer breaks off and i am without steering. My boat
cannot be steered without the rudder. There is a lot of current and
also some very heavy container and ther large ships. Even though the
boat was not sinking, I felt my life was in imminent grave danger from
the rocks and possible being hit by a big boat which have no room for
maneuver. I called Mayday and the coast guard obviously agreed with my
judgement. They came out and towed me to a small yacht harbor. At this
point the emergency was over and they left after giving my vessel a
safety inspection.

If I would have been some other place where there is no shipping
traffic and no rocks, this would have been a call to a towing service,
which is neither Pan, nor an urgency call. Running out of gasoline is
not normally a Mayday ( no people in imminent danger ) nor a Pan, nor
an urgency call. It is simply a telephone call to atowing service to
bring gasoline or tow to a pump. The coast guard will not respond in
this case.

In San Francisco Bay we get a lot of securitee calls from the coast
guard, which advises people of floating logs in the water.




Doug Dotson wrote:
"Steve" wrote in message
...
Can I get a clear definition of "Pan-Pan", who and when may it be
declared.

I have hard the USCG declare "Pan-Pan", followed by a requirement
that all
none "Pan-Pan" traffic on channel 16 traffic be suspended.

True. Pan-Pan (pronounced Pon-Pon) is a non-life threatening
emergency.

Can an individual boat declare "Pan-Pan", say when a crew member is
lost
overboard, etc??

Any vessel can call Pan-Pan. A crew member lost overboard would be a
MAYDAY
however.

I fairly sure I understand when I could send a "May Day" but, to
me, Pan
Pan is something more recent and I must have missed out on earlier
definition..

Thanks

Steve
s/v Good Intentions