We are a few days late in celebrating AMVER‘s 60th birthday. Originally called the Atlantic Merchant Vessel Emergency Reporting System, AMVER became operational on July 18, 1958. When it expanded beyond the Atlantic, the name was changed to the Automated Mutual Assistance Vessel Rescue System. As we wrote eight years ago, AMVER is the most amazing world-wide maritime search and rescue network that you probably have never heard of. And it has been saving sailors’ lives for over 60 years.

AMVER is a voluntary system sponsored by the US Coast Guard. Vessels registered in the program agree to automatically report their positions. When the Coast Guard receives a distress call from an EPIRB or other means, it sees which ships are the closest to those calling for help and vectors the ship to assist.

The Coast Guard history of AMVER notes: Today, over 22,000 ships from hundreds of nations participate in Amver. An average of 4,000 ships are on the Amver plot each day and those numbers continue to increase The Amver Center computer receives over 14,000 Amver messages a day. Over 2,800 lives have been saved by Amver-participating ships since 2000. The success of Amver is directly related to the extraordinary cooperation of ships, companies, SAR authorities, communication service providers and governments in supporting this international humanitarian program to protect life and property at sea.