"In general, any vessel equipped with a VHF marine radiotelephone (whether voluntarily or required to) must maintain a watch on channel 16 (156.800 MHz) whenever the radiotelephone is not being used to communicate."
The only exception is if in a Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) area, then must be monitoring the VTS channel.
(But even cheap handhelds VHFs will monitor two channels at once)
Comments
Yes this is true.
"In general, any vessel equipped with a VHF marine radiotelephone (whether voluntarily or required to) must maintain a watch on channel 16 (156.800 MHz) whenever the radiotelephone is not being used to communicate."
The only exception is if in a Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) area, then must be monitoring the VTS channel.
(But even cheap handhelds VHFs will monitor two channels at once)
https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/radio-watchkeeping-regulations
Article says this was in Farragut Bay which is not a VTS area. So, yes, every boat around was required to be monitoring VHF channel 16.