Coastguard outings not for faint-hearted

DARING: Lyttelton Coastguard station's Terry Graham leaps onto the bow of the rescue boat from the rocks at the entrance to Lyttleton Heads during a routine patrol.

STACY SQUIRES/ The Press

LOOKING FOR TROUBLE: A Coastguard crew patrols off New Brighton. From left are Gordon McKay, Malcolm Hattaway, Terry Graham and skipper Nick Sears.

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We must have looked sceptical standing in the car park of Coastguard Canterbury's Lyttelton base.

It was the day after Boxing Day and an overcast sky and a stiff southwesterly were trying to persuade us that a day on the water was a terrible idea.

Most recreational boaties had taken the weather forecasters' advice and stayed away, but coastguard skipper Nick Sears had other ideas.

The Moa Rescue is a 6.8-metre, orange Naiad with blow-up sides, two large motors and a front hold area under the steering wheel section.

The 40 or so volunteers of the Lyttelton branch perform sea rescues and help boats in trouble from as far north as Motunau down to about halfway to Ashburton.

Sears said some volunteers had boating backgrounds, but several had no experience.

The coastguard provided all the training necessary.

With few people braving the harbour conditions, we were not expecting daring rescues that day. We decided on a harbour patrol and a few exercises.

We were fitted with orange survival suits and lifejackets.

The crew was Sears, 26, a seven-year coastguard veteran; Gordon McKay, a Scot who is a former North Sea rescuer; Terry Graham, who enjoyed a cigarette between bouts of jumping into the sea for our rescue practice; and Malcolm Hattaway, new to coastguard, fearless and an Inland Revenue lawyer.

Sears said the bulk of their work was in Lyttelton Harbour with recreational boaties.

Fine weather followed by a southerly change in the afternoon were classic rescue conditions as the under-equipped or the under-skilled battled to keep up with the conditions.

Calls usually came in from police, often alerted by people whose houses looked out over the harbour.

We taxied out, slopping around in the chop as we had our safety briefing, and then McKay said we should hold on because we were about to go "on plane".

On plane, I found out several seconds later, means going so fast you feel like you are about to be thrown out of the boat as it bounces violently from one wave to another.

We got up to about 38 knots – about 70kmh. In an open rubber boat, that feels very fast.

We motored out to the heads to drop photographer Stacy Squires off so he could get pictures of us speeding past. Sears deftly brought the front of the boat up to rocks, and Squires leapt nimbly ashore.

The return jump was not so nimble and led to our only rescue of the day.

Squires either mistimed his jump or didn't give it enough leg thrust. He slipped off the front of the boat and into the surging sea.

All that was left of him was a couple of hands hanging on to the boat. McKay and Graham leapt into action and grabbed his arms and held him there, dangling half in the sea looking as though he was about to be crushed between boat and rocks.

I helped out by lamely saying: "You all right, Stace?"

He later told me, after he was manoeuvred to the side of the boat and dragged in, that he was amazed at how strong the men's arms were.

Disaster averted. Hattaway, the new man, got back on board and thanked Squires for showing him what not to do.

We powered off through the heads. Without the funnelling effect of the harbour whipping up the wind and intensifying the waves, the sea was quite calm.

Graham went in the water and showed off the flotation powers of the suit. We came alongside him and McKay and Hattaway practised hauling him into the boat.

I had a yarn to Hattaway in the back of the boat as we sped up the coast towards New Brighton Pier.

It was not a large commitment, he said, training on Tuesdays and one weekend day a fortnight on patrol.

"But why do you want to do this?" I yelled into the wind.

"It felt like something worthwhile," he yelled back.

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