Record rescue season for Coast Guard Queenscliff

COAST Guard Queenscliff has been hard at work over the past month, the service responding to 20 incidents in the past four weeks, making it one of the busiest recorded.

A majority of the callouts have been for incidents that could likely have been avoided if the craft operators had followed advised pre-water checks, flotilla commander Michael Donohue said.

“We’ve had the odd unexpected mechanical failure, they’re the sort you expect to turn out to, but the ones that make up the bulk are the fuel and the lack of forethought.”

Old fuel is a common explanation for why many craft operators find themselves stranded out on open water, as is a poor understanding of the conditions in which people are navigating, including one 6m powered boat that ended up stranded on mud flats in Swan Bay recently.

“Fortunately Fisheries were out there on their jet skis, but they still had to walk 30 metres in the mud to pass a rope to the craft,” Mr Donohue explained of the rescue, which required Coast Guard Queenscliff having to tow drag the stranded craft.

“Understand where you’re going to go; know that low tides in Swan Bay leave very little water.”

More experienced boaters have also found themselves in trouble, with one powered boat operator losing the prop from his outboard enginge after colliding with the Nepean reef on his way back in through the heads at low tide.

“He was pretty upset about it, and hopelessly embarrassed. He wasn’t a new boatie, either – I don’t know what happened but he certainly lost his way,” Mr Donohue said.

“People go out and don’t understand that the middle of the water is dredged for big ships, but some go out on the edge, at high tide, and then try to return via the same route.

“The message is for people just to do a little bit of thinking before they go out. Check your fuel, make sure it’s not the same fuel that’s been sitting there over winter; check the mechanics; make sure everything is tight and tied down; give the boat a visual check before launching.”

Coast Guard Queenscliff is also witnessing the recurring issue of people found not to be wearing appropriate safety gear when out on the water.

“People aren’t wearing their life jackets, and kids. It staggers me that you’d take a young tacker out without a jacket,” Mr Donohue said.|

After a slow start to the year, Coast Guard Queenscliff is on track to eclipse its most active season on record.

“We measure our year from July to June, we were a little quieter in the second half of the year, but now we’ve galloped past previous years at a furious pace, ” Mr Donohue said.

“We’re catching up on 2021 very fast and that was our busiest year on record.”