Chief executive “rescued” at sea

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. We decided to give Bruce some first hand experience of being a “patient” aboard the vessel and, after securing him on a stretcher aboard the Sealegs, took Bruce and Carl out for a ride on the water. A rescue scenario with Hibiscus Rescue One doing a patient transfer onto the Sealegs followed. The Sealegs then drove ashore with the “patient” who reported he had had a dry trip.

Bruce and Carl later joined crew at the Hibiscus Coast Boating Club to discuss national developments, hear about some of the challenges Coastguard volunteers face and answer crew’s questions about Coastguard and the wider search and rescue scene at national level.

Topics discussed included the feasibility of government offering tax breaks to companies who allow their staff time off to volunteer in the community, time constraints for volunteers who have to juggle work/family/volunteer hours, alignment of specialised Coastguard training with commercial qualifications and the increasing amount of time search and rescue crew have to spend on promotional activities compared with five years ago to assist with fundraising to keep the rescue vessels on the water.

We have had numerous callouts over the last couple of weeks, mainly mechanical and medical in nature, putting the training of our large number of new recruits to good practice on both of our boats. The busy summer holidays always provide a sharp practical learning curve, giving new volunteers the opportunity to put fresh skills they have learned on their earlier Coastguard recruit course into action on the water under the watchful eyes of more experienced crew.

Image: Hibiscus crew prepare Bruce Reid for his Sealegs experience.