Coast Guard hosts successful Open Day

Coastguard volunteers welcomed visitors to the base last month

Coastguard volunteers welcomed visitors to the base last month

The 2018 QF17 Open Day went off extremely well. The good weather welcomed some 70 visitors to our base. QF17 Members were on hand to offer explanations and tours of our vessels, radio room and insight into the how and why of Coast Guard Tin Can Bay. Learning knots and use of the VHF radio was practiced. The BBQ was appreciated by all.

Thanks to all our great volunteers for donating their time and thank you to the community for your continued support.

First weekend of the month saw Coast Guard Tin Can Bay combine with the Hervey Water Police in an exercise to locate a reported missing man overboard and missing from his vessel somewhere in or near T Bar Creek. Police used QF17 Base as their land based command centre and our boats, along with Water Police and Sandy Straits vessels, began a coordinated Search and Recovery exercise.

Phase one of the exercise finished earlier than expected (we were that good) and recovery of persons in the water was practiced by crews from all our vessels. The “volunteer” police officers enjoyed the cool dip as it was a very warm day.  The day finished with a debrief at base and an undertaking to continue to hone our skills at more frequent exercises.

Thank you to all the supporters of QF17 who purchased a ticket to help make our raffle a success. Congratulations to winners, Dale and Kym Coomber, who said they will take a well deserved week’s holiday with their family to Ramada TreeTops Resort. They also won the book buyer’s cash prize!

First Aid courses, Bar Crossing Courses and VHF Radio courses were all well attended and scheduled for the second half of April and early May are:

  • Coastal Navigation
  • White Water and Bar Crossing
  • Introduction to Boating Safety Short Program (for novices)
  • VHF Radio License Course
  • First Aid

Marine Assist Membership renewals have been sent out and if you haven’t yet received yours, please contact our base on 5486 4290.

Base Stats:

  • 2199 man hours were put in at the base
  • 954 calls in the radio room
  • 100 Seawatch vessels logged on to our free service
  • 8 Assists

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