A man was balancing on the top of his upturned boat in Caroline Bay, Timaru on Friday 2nd December.  Volunteers from Coastguard South Canterbury along with a local Police SAR officer went to his rescue.  The boat was towed ashore along with its grateful occupant.

Volunteers from Coastguard South Canterbury recovered a dinghy believed to be from the sunken fishing boat ‘Journeyman’ on Wednesay evening.  First spotted by a local fishing vessel and reported to the Police, the Coastguard was tasked at 1500hrs and a crew of 4 volunteers in Timaru Rescue picked up the dinghy 3.5 nautical miles from base at 1624hrs.

The Journeyman is believed to have sunk last week on 23rd of November and the body of local fisherman Peter Hunter was recovered the next day by the Coastguard crew.  Coastguard Southern Region Operations Manager and volunteers from Coastguard Canterbury who are based in Christchurch traveled to Timaru to assist the local unit and Police in the management of this operation.

Coastguard South Canterbury is a small Coastguard unit of seven active volunteers.  The Unit has been operating since 1994 and been involved in a number of search and rescue operations during that time.  In the twelve months to 30 June 2011 they gave 555 hours of service to their community, including 22 hours in search and rescue operations and 436 hours on training activities.

Two men in an inflatable dinghy were recued after the dinghy capsized on the Grey River.  The men were unable to get back into their boat and were in danger of being washed out to sea.  Five volunteers from Coastguard West Coast in their IRB undertook the rescue at 6pm on the 19th November.

Two days later on the 21st November the Grey River was in flood and Police were concerned that residents in Totara Flat would be cut off.  Volunteers from Coastguard West Coast were put on stanby for 7 hours in case the home owners needed evacuating.  Fortunately the flood wates receeded and we were not needed.

Coastguard West Coast gets called to a variety of emergencies, 24% of the search and rescue operations since June 2008 have been due to flare sighings which have resulted in nothing being located and possibly due to atmospheric condtions.  The other main cause is due to boats capsizing or sinking.