The U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Humboldt Bay on Tuesday officially adopted a new search-and-rescue system meant to pinpoint callers in distress with greater accuracy than ever before.

Representatives with the Coast Guard, California Army National Guard, Cal Fire, Humboldt County Office of Emergency Services and other agencies were on hand at the McKinleyville air station for a briefing on the system, called Rescue 21. Group Humboldt Bay covers 288 miles of coast from the Oregon border to southern Mendocino County.

Despite its remoteness, the area generates some 480 search and rescue cases and 500 vessel boardings each year, and the group services 55 aids to navigation. The new Rescue 21 system will replace the National Distress Response System that dates back to the 1970s.

”Rescue 21 allows us to spend a little less time on the searching part of it and a little more time on the rescue part of it,” said group commander Capt. Christopher Martino.

The system is being deployed throughout the United States, including in Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It is expected to be fully in place by 2017. The system has been used in the Humboldt region since September, though it only recently replaced the old system altogether.

Rescue 21 uses direction-finding equipment to find mariners in distress, and provides two-way VHF communications to vessels within a 20-mile radius, according to Coast Guard materials. It allows

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rescue personnel to monitor multiple VHF channels, and clarify the recording and playback of distress calls. The General Dynamics brand system also makes coordination with other state and federal agencies easier.

The old system provided an often large search area, especially where radio tower coverage doesn't overlap, forcing helicopter and boat crews to scan many square miles for a vessel that had issued a distress call but couldn't provide coordinates. The new technology narrows the search zone for a vessel in distress, by using lines of bearing that point to the source of the communication. The more towers that pick up the signal, the more exact the position.

”It narrows down the area we have to search a lot,” said Petty Officer Kevin McGregor, explaining the system to officials.

Rescue 21 can also be used in coordination with emergency beacons like EPIRBs, and can work with Digital Selective Calling, which transmits preformatted distress messages and GPS coordinates, according to the Coast Guard. It also helps eliminate hoax calls which expend valuable resources for nothing.

General Dynamics vice president and General Manager John Weidman said that Rescue 21 will help save more lives with less risk to Coast Guard crews.

”We are extremely proud to work side by side with this nation's true heroes,” Weidman said.

John Driscoll covers natural resources/industry. He can be reached at 441-0504 or at jdriscoll@times-standard.com.