'Yuppie 911'
Military aviators are taught to memorize the priority in which they should conduct business. "AVIATE—NAVIGATE—COMMUNICATE" is the order of priority. In other words, the first order of business is to control the aircraft, after which they should fly it in the right direction... Then, after they have done all that they can do with the first two priorities, they can get around to 'communicating.' The same rule applies to sailing.
Even when calling for help, calling 911 is nothing more than 'communicating.' There are other, more important, things that should have been done prior to the call. In fact, it's the things that were done prior to the call that render the call itself legitimate.
The term ["Yuppie 911"] was coined by a California search and rescue official to describe the behavior of people who hike into the wilderness, find themselves a bit uncomfortable and push the panic button on personal locator beacons to call for help—essentially a ride home—from rescue teams, usually in helicopters, often at considerable risk to the rescuers, always at great expense to taxpayers.
In his "Full and By" column in the June 2014 issue of Sailing magazine, Bill Schanen talks about the difference between real emergencies and a negligent "emergency." There is a difference! We should all strive to validate Schanen's statement that "Sailing is the anti-Yuppie 911."
/fl