This story is a component one in a sequence exploring the important work of the Howick Volunteer Coastguard and the individuals who make up the organisation.
When there’s an emergency on the Hauraki Gulf, the courageous and devoted members of the Howick Volunteer Coastguard are sometimes the primary individuals to reply.
“We go wherever we’re requested to go,” explains Scott Kennedy, the group’s govt officer and a certified crew member.
“We principally cowl the entire Hauraki Gulf all the best way to Nice Barrier Island. In Auckland, within the Hauraki Gulf, there are six Coastguard models that every one cowl the identical space of water.
“All of us have an obligation day, at some point in six, which principally implies that if it’s our responsibility day, we’re the primary boat to be referred to as ought to there be a callout.”
The Howick Volunteer Coastguard is a volunteer-based marine rescue unit devoted to conserving individuals protected on the water within the Hauraki Gulf and surrounding areas.
It responds to a variety of incidents, together with boat breakdowns, medical emergencies, capsizes, and search and rescue missions.
Operated by extremely educated volunteers, it’s on name 24/7 and is able to reply wherever somebody wants assist at sea.
The group additionally helps group occasions, assists with towing vessels in misery, and promotes boating security by schooling and outreach.
The variety of incidents its volunteers attended, and the variety of individuals it saved, are each down in 2024/2025 in comparison with the earlier yr. The organisation saved 387 individuals in 2023/2024 and 306 in 2024/2025.
Kennedy says the group’s members are volunteers and in the event that they’re unable to “crew up” and instantly reply to a callout, one other Coastguard unit would then get the decision.
“However for Howick Coastguard, we’re on the water each weekend,” he says.
“Whether or not or not it’s a Saturday or Sunday, we usually cut up up a few shifts and we’ll get the boat crewed up, get out on the water, we’ll do coaching workouts and practice new recruits and maintain everybody fairly sharp.
“If a tasking is available in whereas we’re on the market, we’ll go and try this job after which return again to coaching.
“These kinds of periods are about 5 hours on common after which typically it may be double that if we get large taskings.”
Kennedy says the group at present has about 60 lively volunteers, together with about 35 “moist crew” members, who’re those that exit on the boat. Others help with upkeep and fundraising and administrative work, he says.
“We at all times have a callout for brand new individuals as a result of volunteers come and go and the extra volunteers the higher for us.
“Of the moist crew, there’s totally different ranges of {qualifications}. The highest stage is skipper, or grasp. They’re the controller of the boat.
“Down from there we now have our certified crew members, which is our operational crew. To be an operational crew member may be wherever from 18 months to a few years’ value of coaching and modules you must move.
“And for the boat to depart the shore, we now have to have at the very least one grasp or skipper and two certified crew on board, in any other case the boat can’t depart. After that we now have a ‘deckhand’ standing, which is the following stage down.
“They know learn how to do most issues on the boat, akin to deal with the traces. They know learn how to help within the whole operation we’re doing, however they may not be certified to run the nav station or the radios or issues like that.
“So we’re consistently coaching individuals by that course of.”
Kennedy says it takes a few years for brand new volunteers to work their manner as much as being a part of the operational crew, so “we’ve at all times to go make it possible for funnel is being fed and persons are coming by”.
“We’ve got individuals who may need been volunteering for a yr after which we’ve received individuals who have been volunteering for 40 years and nonetheless going.”
Whereas the minimal age for a volunteer to become involved is 16 years outdated, there’s no most age, and that’s mirrored within the membership of the Howick Volunteer Coastguard.
“We’ve got a volunteer who’s nonetheless moist crew and nonetheless out on the boat on a regular basis and he’s virtually 80,” Kennedy says.
“He’s one among our very skilled guys who you’d go to any time you wish to crew the boat with somebody skilled.
“You’d undoubtedly seize him. He runs all of the boating schooling programs for us in Howick for Coastguard.”
Kennedy himself is a part of the group’s operational crew and is working his manner towards turning into a skipper.
“That’s most likely in a few years’ time,” he says. “The skipper manages the boat, whereas the operational crew operates the boat.
“Being an operational crew member would possibly imply one a part of the day you’re helming the boat and one other a part of the day you could be doing all of the navigation and radio calls.
“If it’s a search, you could be organising the search patterns and the distances and all of the variables like wind and tidal drift and issues like that.
“As a certified crew member, you are able to do something on the boat.”
Folks eager about getting concerned with the Howick Volunteer Coastguard can go surfing to www.coastguard.nz/our-story/about-us/find-your-local/howick.
