Escalating measures to safeguard health

Marine Rescue NSW introduced a series of risk management strategies to safeguard our volunteers’ and community health while maintaining our vital marine radio and rescue services throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

March 3 - enhanced hygiene & cleaning protocols introduced.

March 16 - protocols stepped up to support members’ social distancing & isolation by limiting radio base operations to core numbers of personnel; rostering vessel crew members for on-call response rather than standby duties; cancelling all unit and community activities; Headquarters staff to work remotely from March 17.

March 30 - escalated measures, taking 10 strategically-located radio bases offline & moving six others to weekend/public holiday operations. Radio monitoring for these carried out remotely.

May 5 - following easing of public social distancing requirements, radio bases that had been offline or limited to weekends/holidays resumed rostered duties with core personnel. Vessel crews remained on-call.

May 20 - rostered vessel duties resumed & units were allowed to hold meetings, training, recruitment & public classes of up to five people as long as social distancing was maintained. Operational assessments for vessel and radio training permitted.

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Boaters seize ‘reasonable excuses’ to go out Physical distancing rules relax ahead of expected surge on June long weekend.

Getting out on the water proved an ideal way for many boaters to break loose from their COVID-19 social isolation.

In the face of community uncertainty about whether people were permitted to go boating and fishing, the NSW Government issued public health directions on March 31 to clarify that people should stay at home unless they had a “reasonable excuse” to use a boat.

The four “reasonable excuses” were to: exercise (eg kayaking, sailing, paddling etc), fish, get to and from work if this could not reasonably be performed from home or get groceries. Individuals were required to maintain social distancing of four square metres of space per person on board.

More than 12,200 vessels Logged On with MRNSW in March and April. While this was fewer than during the same period in 2019, anecdotal reports from units indicated the number of vessels Logging On was a fraction of those on the water, with boaters possibly under the mistaken belief that they would be reported for heading out.

The clarification of the social distancing on board rule on March 31 saw the average number of people on board each Logged On vessel drop from three in March to 1.95 in April.

MRNSW appealed to boaters to ‘Stay Safe. Stay Home’ to help protect their own and frontline volunteers’ health.

Director of Operations Andrew Cribb said MRNSW had introduced measures to ensure as many volunteers as possible were able to comply with the community’s obligations to stay home unless essential, while still maintaining the organisation’s core services.

“Reducing the number of boats on the water and correspondingly, the incidence of emergencies, was crucial to lessening the potential infection risk to crew members who would need to break their own social isolation to respond,” he said.

Expecting a surge in boating on the June long weekend, Transport for NSW clarified that people from the same household no longer needed to follow physical distancing on board.

If not from the same household, boaters needed to maintain 1.5m distancing or as near as practicable on board.

Volunteers saving lives on the water

Stay Safe. Stay Home. For us all.

We miss being out on the water, too but please don’t risk your own or our volunteers’ health.