Missing Kayak and Jet skier – Desktop Exercises in Dunedin & Invercargill
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.
