Murray Paul is the Southern Region Coastguard Rescue Volunteer of the Year 2010 for his work with Coastguard Kaikoura.  Murray has been a Coastguard volunteer for five years and is a Skipper of  ‘Kaikoura Rescue‘.  A dedicated volunteer he has been involved in many of the rescues undertaken by Coastguard Kaikoura including a severe North-West gale in December 2009 where  the rescue vessel was needed for three separate incidents happening at the same time.  Handling the 11.3 meter vessel around the rock shoreline in 70 knot winds demanded a high level of seamanship.

Gordon McKay is the Southern Region Coastguard Air Patrol Volunteer of the Year 2010 for his work with the Coastguard Canterbury Air Patrol.   Gordon was involved in an air search for a yacht  that stretched the capability of the aircraft as they sought to make radio contact from 6,000 feet with no land in sight.   He is involved in training for his fellow volunteers and has extensive marine experience which is valuable in the liaison between the Air Patrol and the Marine Units.

Rachel McKenzie is Coastguard Southern Region Volunteer of the Year 2010. Rachel has been a member of Coastguard Canterbury for over 15 years.  She has had many roles within the unit including Senior Skipper, Safety Officer, Search & Rescue Manager, Duty Officer and Board member.  She has been involved in many search and rescue operations as either the Skipper of the rescue vessel or the shore based Operations Coordinator.  She has been involved in training at every level both theory and practical as well as providing leadership and mentoring for new members.

Chris Astall is Coastguard Southern Region Operational Volunteer of the Year 2010. Chris has been a member of Coastguard Canterbury for three years and is a team leader, training manager and senior crew member.  He has be instramentall in further developing the unit training activities with has seen an large increase in the number of volunteers participating in regular training nights.

Coastguard Kaikoura has won the Coastguard Southern Region Coastguard Performance of the Year 2010. Since 1974 Coastguard Kaikoura volunteers have been rescuing people along the beautiful but sometimes treacherous Kaikoura Coast.  Earlier this year they rescued the crew of the yacht Marguerite in 5 metre breaking swells and 55-75km per hour winds.  During the last twelve months they have rescued 53 people and had a 100% increase in Police initiated search and rescue missions.

The winners have been nominated for the national Coastguard Volunteer Awards which will be presented at the Coastguard Conference being held in Taupo on 17-19 September.

Owned by Coastguard New Zealand the rescue vessel has been provided under a bailment agreement for three years.  Coastguard Canterbury donated their 4WD vehicle which has been altered to work with the launch trailer.  This vessel is now available to be towed to any appropriate waterway on the West Coast.  It has already seen service in May when the volunteer crew of Coastguard Lake Brunner were involved in the recovery of a woman’s body in a local lake.

Coastguard is grateful for the support of NZCT, Pub Charity and the Otago Community Trust for funding for the project.

6th August at 11.20 a head on car crash on a road running close to the shores of Lake Wakatipu caused one car to travel over a bank finally stop 30 meters from the lake edge.  Police were unable to locate the driver and called out Coastguard Queenstown to search along the lake shore using their Thermal imaging equipment as there was a possibility he may have ended up in the lake or in bush close to shore.

The volunteer crew searched for two hours along the shore and out into the lake for a 1/4 mile out from shore but were unable to locate the missing man.  Police later discovered he hade made his way home and was safe and well.

Saturday morning at 7am another call for a missing surfer, 9am a report of missing school children on Quail Island and 9.30am a call relating to a crashed Hang Glider on cliffs outside Lyttelton Harbour.  And in the middle of this Coastguard Canterbury received a ‘No Duff’ call for assistance from a pleasure boat that had broken down in Lyttelton Harbour.  During the exercise radio messages were generally started with the message ‘SAREX SAREX’ to identify then, however when Coastguard receives a genuine call during an exercise to make sure everyone knows this is not part of the exercise the radio messages start with ‘No Duff, No Duff’.

“We’re really pleased with how our professional volunteers performed during the search and rescue exercise” says Mark, “its shown us again our strengths in operational activities and allowed us to identify areas in the management of operations that we need to put time into training on”.

Over 120 people participated in the exercise including Sea Cadets, members of the Canterbury Outboard Boat Club as well as Coastguard, Surf Lifesaving, LandSAR and Police.

Code named ‘Canterbury Moana 2010′, the exercise involves staging a number of marine incidents and is designed to text multiple search and rescue agencies’ standard operating procedure in response to a marine emergency.

In addition to the four Coastguard units (Canterbury Canterbury Air Patrol Waimak Ashley and Sumner), the SAREX is coordinated with other members of the Canterbury Marine Seach and Rescue committee including NZ Police, Westpac Rescue Helicopters, Surf Lifesaving and Amateur Radio Emergency Communications (AREC).

Mark Whitehouse, Operations Manager for Coastguard Southern Region, says the aim of the SARAEX is to maintain operational readiness and increase interagency understanding of how to work together as one in search and rescue operations.

“A live exercise like this helps us to identify any areas where we could be working harder to improve our communication processes and increase safety on our waters – especially when we are working alongside other rescue operators.”

Mr Whitehouse says in the past 12 months, professional volunteers in the Coastguards Southern Region have spent 4.5% of their time on search and rescue operations and invested another 45% in training alone.

“Taking part in the SAREX plays an instrumental part in the ongoing instruction our volunteers receive to push them to the best of their ability, help them cope under pressure and give them the hands-on experience needed to train and prepare them for real-time marine rescues,” he says.

When: starting at 6pm Friday 30 July and finish 12 Noon Saturday 31 July 2010

Where: Canterbury Pegasus Bay and Banks Peninsula area

The winner of the draw for a family trip out on the newest Coastguard Rescue Vessel, Blue Arrow, is Tipora Grennell.

Ivan Talley Rescue

Coastguard West Coast volunteers were put on standby on Saturday 26th June when a red flare was sighted over the Tasman Sea offshore from Barry Town near Greymouth, at 8.35pm.    A possible vessel sighting was subsequently reported and a helcopter with night vision was dispatched but could not locate anything.  The Ivan Talley Rescue and its volunteer crew was stood down by Police at 10pm.