Train One – Save Many

is the theme of Coastguards national fundraising appeal which starts on 1st May.  Running for two weeks until Sunday 15 May, all donations made during MayDay will be invested in supporting Coastguards critical volunteer training programme.

It costs $34.40 per week to give each volunteer the extensive practical training, both in the water and the air, to ensure they can respond to each call for help with speed and accuracy to help fulfil the charity’s ongoing mission to save lives at sea.

• 2,268 volunteers are currently involved with Coastguard throughout New Zealand.
• 239,835 hours of volunteer time have been given to local communities by Coastguard volunteers from July 2010 to March 2011
• Last year 3,622 people called for help from Coastguard volunteers (that’s 10 per day)
• On top of that Police called on Coastguard volunteers 843 times
• 6,560 people were rescued by Coastguard volunteers last year (an average of 17 people every day)
• Three people are rescued by every Coastguard volunteer each year

Donations to support the training of Coastguard volunteers can be made by

• visiting an ASB branch and making a donation
• going online at http://www.coastguard.co.nz/mayday

Dave Cox, Ian Blackler, Geoff Pollard, Murray Paul, Alasdair Lean, Richard Craig received Certificates of Achievement on 13th April 2011 from Hon Steven Joyce, Minister of Transport for the rescue of the yacht Marguerite on 18th June 2010.

On 18th June 2010, the yacht Marguerite hit what the crew beleived to be a whale, sustaining damage to the rudder.  The lurch of the vessel injured the two crew members on board.  With their rudder jammed in heavy seas, a large wave pushed water into the cabin disabling their electronics.  They spent a very uncomfortable night at sea and activated their 406MHz distress beacon in the morning.

Coastguard Kaikoura was tasked to assist the Marguerite, which was 30km off-shore and well outside their normal operational area.  Their vessel Kaikoura Rescue battled sswells of five metres and winds gusting 55-75 km/h, so it took them 90 minutes to reach the stranded yacht.  Then the Marguerite crew had to set off two flares to help the Coastguard crew locate the yacht because visibility was so poor.  The injured crew were transferred to the rescue vessel in difficult conditions and were taken back to shore for hospital treatment.  the volunteers later returned to the yacht and took it under tow to the harbour.

Their award recognised the skills and dedication demonstrated by the volunteers in the sever weather conditions they faced during the search and rescue operation.

The Gold Award for the most significant contribution to search and rescue in the New Zealand region was awarded to Captain Greg Lyall and the crew of the fishing vessel Amaltal Atlantis for the rescue of the crew from the Oyang 70 on 18th August 2010.

A Kayaker was missing having not returned from taking photos of the Albatross colony at the head of the Otago Harbour on Sunday 10th April – this was the scenario that 11 Coastguard volunteers, Police and a radio operator from the Dunedin Marine SAR group were faced with in a ‘desktop’ exercise.

The exercise was preceeded with training covering coastal search and rescue planning and incident management team revision provided by SAR Tutor and Coastguard Volunteer of the Year 2010, Rachel Mackenzie along with Coastguard Southern Operations Manager, Mark Whitehouse.   The Incident Management Team had to ‘manage’ the incident and were fed information from roll playing participants including the ‘distraught wife’ and a ‘John Campbell impersonator’ to provide realism.   Coastguard volunteers based at their boatshed in Portobello played the part of the Coastguard rescue vessel and other vessels of opportunity that were assisting in the search via VHF radio.

After three hours the ‘lost person’ was successfully found.  ”These exercises give out people the opportunity to practice in as realistic a manner as possible how they work together with other agencies such as Police so that when a real search operation happens we are able to improve our response capability” says Mark Whitehouse.

A similar exercise was held on Monday night in Invercargill with 7 Coastguard volunteers and Police.  This desktop exercise involved the scenario that a jet skier was missing in Foveaux Strait off Colic Bay.   Based in the new operations room which was set up as a joint project between Coastguard and Police in the Invercargill Police station the exercise took three hours and tested the volunteers skills in planning an ongoing response.

Coastguard Regional Manager, Cheryl Moffat says “Much of our work involved rescues where we know the position of a vessel or person in distress.  The most difficult and challenging situations involve missing vessels or persons at sea or in lakes.  It is these scenarios that we practice our planning skills and how to utilise the assets we have and to pull together information which will help make the search successful”.  Coastguard volunteers practice regularly on water search patterns and activities, however the pulling together of a multi agency incident management team is invaluable - practice makes perfect!  Desktop exercises help us focus on particular aspects of the work without the cost of having vessels on the water says Mrs Moffat.

Christchurch has been through an experience we never want to see again. Our Coastguard family have lost friends and family members, and we  are awaiting news about one volunteer who is still unaccounted for  and have farewelled another who sadly lost his life in the CTV building. This devastating quake has affected so many lives. We hope you and your family are safe and well if you live in Christchurch. With two degrees of separation even if you don’t live here you are likely to have family and friends in Christchurch and we hope they too are safe. If that isn’t the case please accept our deepest and most sincere condolences. We know that this disaster has touched people across the country and around the world.

I want to tell you how you have helped Coastguard  make a difference in Christchurch and helped our community. We do say that saving lives at sea begins on land, what we mean is that the planning, communications and incident management activities that go into responding to a search and rescue situation at sea are all done on land.  Right now those are the very skills that have meant Coastguard volunteers have been invaluable in helping Civil Defence respond in this national disaster.

Many generous volunteers have worked at welfare centres, a fantastic team in Sumner helped the local Fire Service and still more have been involved in helping inner city residents get back into their homes for the first time as cordons are lifted.

But without the help of our generous supporters we wouldn’t have been able to fund the training our volunteers need to be able to provide such a valuable service—thank you very much.