with Matt Turner
www.hibiscus.org.nz
Coastguard’s motto is Saving Lives at Sea and to this end volunteers are on the water, patrolling the coastline every weekend.
2012 Columns
The big news for the Coastguard Hibiscus unit is that, after months of anticipation, our new vessel Hibiscus Rescue 1 is scheduled to undergo sea trials and hit the water later this month. Watch this space. In the meantime, our dependable Sealegs was tasked out to a number of call-outs over the holiday season.
2011 Columns
Here comes the summer, and balmy spells are luring us out onto the water in record number. But the weather can still throw a few curlies, so it pays to pack some protective clothing, keep enough fuel in reserve for the unexpected, and always check the forecast before you set out.
Flares are a potentially life-saving addition to your on-board safety kit. They come in three basic types.
With the warmer weather gradually returning, many of us are thinking about preparing our boats after the winter lay-off to enjoy the fishing or cruising. With that in mind, here are a few reminders that will help ensure you won’t need a Coastguard rescue vessel on the water
Coastguard Hibiscus is proud to have recently added Peter Kramer and Karen Elliott to its roster of skippers. They join a select few volunteers whose experience and knowledge qualifies them to take responsibility for the safety and performance of the rescue vessel and its crew when tasked with saving lives at sea.
Coastguard Hibiscus took part in a combined search operation on August 17 that made national news after a local fishing trip turned to tragedy. The Sealegs amphibious craft Hibiscus Rescue 2, stationed at Stanmore Bay, was called out to search for a person in the water off Kawau Island.
Coastguard Hibiscus has been paged out twice in recent months for tsunami warnings eventuating from earthquakes: after the Chilean earthquake last year and following the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan. As crew watched horrific scenes in Japan unfold on television, events on the other side of the world gatecrashed our homes as Coastguard pagers instructied loudly ‘All units activate your tsunami plans’.
A woman who usually never goes boating without her partner, decided to take her two children out fishing in a small aluminium dinghy 1–2km off Arkles Bay recently.
While crew have been busy on the water over the summer, the Hibiscus Sea Rescue Trust and Coastguard Hibiscus have been busy working behind the scenes and have jointly signed the formal contract with Naiad Inflatables (NZ) Ltd to build a new 9.5m Naiad Rescue Vessel to replace the Rayglass Protector currently based at Gulf Harbour Marina. The new boat is currently under construction at Blue Water Boats Ltd at Swanson, with completion expected in early September. From then, both the new and old Hibiscus Rescue One boats will be based at Gulf Harbour until the new vessel is fully operational, with commissioning and crew training completed in time for the Christmas holiday period.
Over the summer holidays Coastguard Hibiscus had a number of callouts, mainly to boaties’ routine mechanical breakdowns. Among the other types of incidents we dealt with was the occasion when a man slipped on rocks at Granny’s Bay (the next bay north from Long Bay) and fell into the water. He remained there for up to 15 minutes before members of the public on the beach managed to pull him out of the water. During the mishap the man sustained injury, including two suspected dislocated knees.
The importance of telling someone ashore what your plans are when you head out on the water was highlighted recently when our Sealegs, Hibiscus Rescue Two, was paged out to find a man who had gone out from Orewa for a couple of hours fishing in a 14 foot dinghy with no cellphone, no VHF radio, no torch, no navigation lights, only one oar and no other means of communication. He hadn’t put in a trip report with Coastguard, which may have provided further information. In his favour however, the man did have a lifejacket and a flare on board. When he failed to return after dark his wife eventually called the police, who then called Coastguard.
2010
Christmas is our peak time for callouts. Over the holiday period Coastguard Hibiscus will be spending additional hours on the water patrolling the Whangaparaoa area (the unit is on callout 24/7, 365 days a year).
Our Coastguard Hibiscus Crew Chief dreamt up an interesting training exercise recently. He despatched crew around the marina at Gulf Harbour to do a quick survey of boat navigation lights. It sounded a bit humdrum to start with but the findings were an eye-opener.
Labour weekend kicked off with the Coastal Classic on October 22. Hibiscus Rescue One went out to the southern end of Tiri and stood by in case it was needed. Previous years have seen dismastings and other various mishaps requiring our rapid assistance into Gulf Harbour; this year however with a calm sea and 20 knot SW winds the race all went smoothly and no Coastguard assistance was needed so our crew were able to sit and enjoy a grandstand view of the race.
As Labour weekend officially marks the start of summer boating, as well as the traditional ‘breakdown season’ for Coastguard, now is a good time to run some annual checks on the boat to minimise the chances of arriving home on the end of our Coastguard tow rope.
A day out crewing on Hibiscus Rescue One or 2 will typically start with either an early morning callout or with an arranged training session on the water. Callouts can vary from a duty crew turning out for a non-urgent ‘pageout’, such as a vessel broken down and needing a tow, to all available crew turning out in a hurry for an urgent callout such as an EPIRB activation, boatfire, sinking or medical situation, in which case the first four or five crew to arrive at the boat usually go out.
The Coastguard Hibiscus column is back in action from this issue for the summer boating season.
Over winter the unit elected a new president, Keith Roberts, who has been getting to grips with the politics involved in his busy role at the top, aided by outgoing president Hugh Lemmon. Hugh will play a support role as the unit’s immediate past president, a less taxing but nevertheless important role, ensuring lessons of the past are not forgotten in the change of personnel.
Out on the water, Coastguard Hibiscus occasionally receives complaints from the public about jetskiers and boats getting too close to swimmers or other vessels, and/or speeding.
At 5.40am on the morning following the recent earthquake in Chile, bleeping pagers woke Coastguard Hibiscus crew with a tsunami warning and instructions to implement our full unit tsunami plan. Coastguard operations staff in Auckland had been broadcasting the tsunami warning through the night from 12.30am on all the Coastguard VHF radio channels and consulting with Auckland Civil Defence, the Harbourmaster and Maritime Police, preparing the Coastguard response to the tsunami threat to our coastline. Local units such as Coastguard Hibiscus had been left to sleep most of the night in preparation for what could be a very long day if coastal damage and risk to boaties and beachgoers turned out to be major.
Around 80 percent of Coastguard’s callouts are to assist boats with mechanical breakdowns, which need towing back to their marina berth or mooring. The remaining 20 percent comprises the more dramatic stuff of medical emergencies, boats on rocks, boat fires and sinkings.
Coastguard NZ chief executive Bruce Reid, along with NZ Search and Rescue Secretariat senior advisor Carl van der Meulen (based in Wellington), recently paid a visit to Coastguard Hibiscus to take a look at our Sealegs rescue vessel, the first Sealegs to go into commercial survey in New Zealand.
Hibiscus Rescue 2 was recently paged out to a 14’ runabout whose occupants thought they were 500m off Orewa beach and had phoned family, who had phoned police, who had alerted Coastguard to a mechanical problem on the boat.
