LIFELINE December 2011 - English

LIFE LINE

December 2011

December 2010 The Newsletter of the International Maritime Rescue Federation (IMRF) December 2010 News… Experience… Ideas… Information… Development…

December 2010 In this issue:      

December 2010

IMRF communications meet the IMRF’s new Board of Trustees, and the Secretariat the next stage of the IMRF’s mass rescue operations project December the IMO Bravery Awards 2010 news from the Netherlands & Kenya, Brazil, Canada, New Caledonia, and New Zealand and more!

December 2010

A New Year Message from the Chairman December 2010 At the end of another year in the IMRF it is timely to reflect on what has been achieved and also what we need to focus on in 2012. In this newsletter you will read about the drive to improve communications with both December members and potential members. Much has been done since the Congress in August and further action is planned. It does however require two participants for communication to work properly and I would2010 ask you all to assist us in serving you better in this regard.

December The World Maritime Rescue Congress in Shanghai was undoubtedly a highlight of the last four years and the Trustees, ably supported by the re-organised Secretariat, are working on delivering the agreed 2010actions detailed in the QGM minutes now on the website. Our hosts, China Rescue and Salvage, really looked after us and many of you will have returned to your part of the world with warm feelings about our Chinese colleagues and their generous hospitality. New friendships were made and many bi-lateral initiatives started:December if the IMRF 2010 can provide assistance or support in such areas please let us know.

Work will continue on both the Rescue Boat Guidelines and the Mass Rescue projects. A second Mass Rescue Conference is now being planned as a follow-up to the first one, to be held in GothenburgDecember again from 3-5 June 2012. There is more on this in this newsletter too.

2010 Membership remains buoyant - but I would ask you all to encourage new members to join us. More members mean more experience and the possibility for more sharing of ideas, people and lifesaving skills. The IMRF is December but a name without the members who provide the life blood of the organisation and also the means for it to 2010 meet its stated objective of reducing the loss of life on the world’s waters.

One particular action from the Congress that we want to move forward is the establishment of a better funding December strategy to underpin the important work being carried out at the present time and also safeguard our longer 2010 term financial stability. With the re-organisation of the Secretariat nearly completed the next task is to follow up the offers of assistance from some of the members at the Congress to improve our fundraising capability. We need to reduce our December dependence on membership fees and a reliance on some disproportionate 2010 additional contributions from a few of the larger established members.

Thank you all for your ongoing support of the IMRF’s work. On behalf of the Trustees may I wish you good luck and success in your lifesaving endeavours wherever you are and whenever they take place: the saving of a human life is about as good as it gets!

Michael Vlasto, Chairman of the IMRF Trustees

December 2010 December 2010 December page 1 2010 December

LIFE LINE

December 2011

Editorial

Contents

Welcome to the December edition of your newsletter.

A New Year Message from the Chairman ...

1

As I write, in a reasonably high latitude of the northern hemisphere, winter is letting us know that it is about, with severe gales, and driving rain and snow. I was looking at the sea earlier today - and was glad I was not out on it, especially not in a small boat of any description. Yet no doubt there are SAR people out there even now, doing what SAR people do as the early dark descends.

Editorial

2

Not all of you are in the northern hemisphere, of course. Some of you in the south are well into summer - which, if your part of the SAR world is anything like mine, tends to mean more ‘shouts’, not fewer. And some of you are lucky enough to do your SAR in the tropics. Well: I know it can be tough there too, sometimes.

Indeed, my own most recent SAR experience was only a degree or so north of the tropic. After the World Maritime Rescue Congress my wife and I were lucky enough to be able to see a little more of China.

We undertook a rafting expedition on the Li River.

Which ended badly, as you can see...

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Dates for the Diary

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SAR Matters .............................................

3

Meet the IMRF’s Board of Trustees

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...and the IMRF Secretariat

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What’s our goal?

Mass rescue operations

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The IMO Bravery Awards

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7

News from Brazil

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More IMO news

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News from the North Atlantic ...................

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News from Canada

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News from New Caledonia

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News from New Zealand

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A SAR news-stand Postscript

Send us your news & pictures

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Dates for the Diary North America Regional Meeting 15 January 2012

OK: apart from demonstrating the lengths your Editor will go to in order to get a story about SAR on (or in) the world’s waters, this was, of course, no more than a wetting and a chance for a good laugh with the raftsmen. But perhaps it also showed that, wherever the water may be, and whatever the craft, accidents happen - and often when you are least expecting it.

(We were not, you will observe, wearing lifejackets...)

A raft tipping tourists into the Li River will most likely lead to hilarity, not calamity. Not so accidents on the water elsewhere. Not out on the dark and windy sea near where I am writing now; nor, perhaps, in warmer waters, where help - even if only in the shape of an out-stretched pole - may be just too far away.

2011 is ending: a New Year beckons. The need for SAR continues.

To be held in the Hilton Alexandria, near Washington DC in association with a meeting of the IMRF Trustees.

Contact a.laing@international-maritime-rescue.org for more details.

Mass Rescue Conference

3-5 June 2012

The second in IMRF‟s conference series on mass rescue at sea will continue work begun in Gothenburg in June 2010 (see report in the October 2010 issue of LIFE LINE) and progressed at the World Maritime Rescue Congress in Shanghai. Further details in this issue of LIFE LINE. Please note the slight change of date

If you have a SAR event of international interest which you would like to see listed here, just let us know!

Happy New Year. Be as safe as you can. I wish you every lifesaving success for the coming year.

Dave Jardine-Smith news@international-maritimerescue.org

news@international-maritime-rescue.org page 2

LIFE LINE

December 2011

SAR Matters “Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication. Communication requires that the communicating parties share an area of communicative commonality. The communication process is complete once the receiver has understood the message of the sender.” (Source: Wikipedia) We have discussed communication in this column in previous editions of LIFE LINE (please see the February 2011 issue in particular, available from the newsletter archive on the IMRF website, www.internationalmaritime-rescue.org). We have talked about two-way communication; mutual understanding; having the right equipment, systems and people, and knowing how to use them; the importance of planning how best to exchange information; and how, in SAR, lives can depend on effective communication. As a specific example outside the obvious need for good operational communications, we discussed how we might learn lessons from our experience and communicate those lessons to SAR colleagues around the world (see the April & June 2011 editions of LIFE LINE).

At the IMRF’s Quadrennial General Meeting in Shanghai another particular aspect of the communications question arose - a particular aspect, but one still sharing all of the attributes mentioned above. This was the matter of communications between the IMRF and its Members, which includes the bilateral communication between Members that the IMRF partly exists to facilitate. ‘The gap between the IMRF and its Members needs to be narrowed,’ it was agreed in Shanghai; and ‘Communication is what it is all about.’

The Trustees have made improving IMRF communications a clear priority, and work on this is progressing quickly. The Secretariat is being reorganised to this end (see page 4). We are focussing on how we communicate - and we want to hear from you about this: communication is a two-way street, after all!

Apart from direct contacts with the Secretariat, our primary means of communication are this newsletter and the website, www. international-maritime-rescue.org. As you will see on page 4, we are recruiting a website manager to help us make best use of this facility. Let us know, please, what you would like us to do with it.

But however user-friendly a website is, it still requires you to visit it. LIFE LINE is more dynamic: it comes to you!

We have now improved the method by which we distribute LIFE LINE, seeking to improve your experience of it by not emailing it as a bulky attachment but instead sending you links to it on the website, either by using a hyperlink or (if your security systems do not permit this) by following links manually. Similarly, with firewalls still in mind, we have disabled hyperlinks in the newsletter itself, to avoid download difficulties. We hope these measures help.

But it’s over to you now. Let us know what else you would like us to do to improve LIFE LINE. And help us, please, to distribute it further. Is there anyone else in your organisation - or outside it: LIFE LINE is freely available to all - who would like to receive it? It’s simple to sign up online: visit the website, click on ‘Newsletter’, and join in!

Because it’s good to talk - and, in our business, it can help save lives.

SAR Matters is a discussion column intended to provide a forum for LIFE LINE readers worldwide to contribute to debate on any relevant SAR issue - not just on the IMRF itself. Please see previous editions of LIFE LINE - available on the website, www. international-maritime-rescue.org - for earlier discussions.

Comment and/or new items for discussion should be emailed to news@international-maritime-rescue.org.

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LIFE LINE

December 2011

Meet the IMRF’s Board of Trustees In our last edition we announced the election of the IMRF’s ‘new’ Board of Trustees at the World Maritime Rescue Congress in Shanghai. Happily there are familiar faces at the helm as most of the Board previously elected for the period from 2007 to 2011 were able to stand for re-election for the 2011-2015 quadrennium. This is of significant importance for management continuity as the IMRF faces the challenges ahead.

Some of our readers will know the Trustees already. But, for those of you who have not yet had the pleasure, let us introduce them to you...

Let’s begin with our newest Trustee! Jorge Diena (left) joined the Asociación Honoraria de Salvamentos Marítimos y Fluviales (ADES, Uruguay) in 1980 and, since 1996, has served as a volunteer coxswain at ADES’ Montevideo station, with over 200 ‘shouts’ to his credit. He is an agricultural engineer by profession, and is now a director and partner in a dairy farm and two companies engaged in environmental protection and domestic & hospital waste management. “To be part of a group stubbornly committed to saving lives in danger at sea is an honour, a challenge - and it feels good,” he says. “Now, as a trustee, I’d like to help to improve the capabilities of the lifesaving institutions in the South American region, and to help to establish new ones where the need arises.”

Michael Vlasto (top left in the panel below) is well known as IMRF’s Chairman of Trustees - and as the RNLI’s Operations Director, a post he has held since 1997.

Michael is a Master Mariner who joined the RNLI as a Lifeboat Inspector in 1975. He subsequently took charge of training and then of the RNLI’s move into accident prevention. He is now responsible for lifeboat, lifeguard and coastal safety services throughout the UK and Ireland. He was first elected Chairman of the IMRF Trustees in 2007.

Rolf Westerström (top right in the panel) is also a Master Mariner, and a former Chairman of what is now the IMRF, overseeing the federation’s transition from its ILF roots from 2003 to 2007. Rolf has been Chief Executive Officer of the Swedish Sea Rescue Society since 1993. His seafaring career was in ro-ros and bulkships as deck officer, and ro-ros and ocean-going tugs as owner / operator and master.

Jiahui Song (middle row, left) is Director-General of China Rescue and Salvage. In a maritime career of more than 30 years, Jiahui has served at sea with COSCO (including as Master of China’s first tanker of more than 300,000 dwt) and with China’s Harbour Superintendence and Maritime Safety Administrations. Since 2003 he has guided a sweeping reform of China’s maritime rescue and salvage sector. Appropriately enough, perhaps, he is also the best singer on the Board!

Udo Fox (middle, right) is another Master Mariner, and a Master of Business Administration. He has been Executive Director of the German Maritime SAR Service (DGzRS) since 2001, and before that Chief of the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre at Bremen. He has done much work at, and on behalf of, the IMO and the EU, and is a Visiting Professor at the World Maritime University.

Brooke Archbold (below, left) has an extensive Coastguard background in New Zealand, and over the years has been involved in most facets of the organisation. He was first elected to the Coastguard New Zealand Board in 1989 and is a past-President of both Coastguard Auckland and the Royal New Zealand Coastguard Federation. He is still a duty Senior Master for the Coastguard and, among many other things, is Principal SAR Controller for New Zealand’s Northern Region.

He recently retired after 12 years as Chairman of the Coastguard Boating Education Service.

Last but not least, Hamish McDonald has a background in Scottish fishing and - from 1975-2007 - as coxswain of the Stonehaven lifeboat. He directed RGIT Survival Centre’s maritime rescue section, and Maritime Rescue International.

He founded the charity Maritime Rescue Institute in 2001 and served as its voluntary CEO to 2009. He is now Managing Director of Enkur Ltd, and has developed and managed over 350 specialist projects in the maritime and security fields.

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LIFE LINE

December 2011

Meet the IMRF Secretariat The IMRF’s Secretariat is going through a few changes. As with the Trustees, some of us you know already, some you probably do not. Well: hello!

The departure of Gerry Keeling from the Secretariat was reported in the October edition of LIFE LINE. We are happy to say that he remains active (!); but Gerry was the IMRF’s only full-time employee. Since the foundation of the IMRF he had been ably supported by a number of Member secondees and, latterly, by Ann Laing (left). Ann works part-time for the IMRF - and manages IMRF Member the Maritime Rescue Institute in the other ‘half’ of her time. (Both are really full-time jobs on occasion!) Based at Stonehaven in Scotland, Ann is primarily responsible for Membership matters. She may be contacted at a.laing@international-maritime-rescue.org or on +44 (0)1569 765768.

When Gerry fell ill in late 2009, the Trustees asked consultant David Jardine-Smith (second from left) to help fill the gap. David (a former head of SAR with the UK Coastguard) is now Acting Secretary, and he also coordinates the mass rescue operations project, edits LIFE LINE, and leads for the IMRF at the IMO. He is best contacted at d.jardinesmith@international-maritime-rescue.org or via the Stonehaven office telephone number above.

Jill Greenlees (third from left) is the IMRF’s part-time accountant, also based at Stonehaven. Jill originally came to the Maritime Rescue Institute as a volunteer but - from 1 December - we have asked her to devote one day a week to keeping the IMRF’s books straight. Welcome aboard, Jill!

Finally, another big welcome, please, for Wendy Webster ( right). Wendy is another Stonehaven volunteer who will be joining the IMRF as a part-time employee from 1 January. With communications with the Membership and the wider world very much at the forefront of our minds (see ‘SAR Matters’ on page 3) we have asked Wendy to manage our website for us, ensuring that it is properly organised, up-to-date, and user-friendly. She will also be able to supply the information systems management expertise that some of us older ones ( I name no names: Ed.) may lack.

So this is the Secretariat team: we are here to help you. Please contact Ann or David whenever you need.

What’s our goal...?

News from the Netherlands What have footballers in the Netherlands got to do with saving lives in Africa? Well: quite a lot, actually.

Pictured here are the some of the players in the ‘Visserijtoernooi’ (or ‘Fishery Tournament’) held in the town on Urk last winter. Urk is a fishing community on the Dutch coast, and their footballers decided that they would like some of the proceeds of their competition to go to the aid of fellow-fishermen far away on the shores of the Indian Ocean.

environmental awareness. We focus on sustainable development initiatives: we encourage the local community to participate fully in all aspects of the programme with the main aim of creating interest within the community to continue after the initial programme has been completed.

“The generous donation from the people of Urk will support water safety, including swimming training and the local manufacture and wearing of lifejackets.”

One-all, perhaps...? A result, anyway!

A cheque was accordingly donated to Sip Wiebenga, formerly of KNRM (and a recently retired IMRF Trustee), and the money is being transferred by the IMRF to the Crisis Response Development Foundation (CRDF) of Kenya (see www.crdfafrica.org).

John Sutton of CRDF writes: “CRDF’s Maritime Community Project has been running two programmes: training community beach traders to become lifeguards at public beaches; and training schoolchildren from fishing communities in swimming, water safety and page 5

LIFE LINE

December 2011

Mass Rescue Operations



Agree a concept for an IMRF ‘model course’ or MRO workshop.

‘Gothenburg 2’ will again be held at the SSRS’s excellent facilities. Registration and optional activities rd will be on Sunday 3 and the conference itself will be on 4-5 June 2012. Hotels offering special rates will be available in the city, and free buses will be available to transport delegates to the conference centre.

In June 2010, the IMRF organised a very successful mass rescue conference, hosted by Members the Swedish Sea Rescue Society (SSRS) at their headquarters near Gothenburg. (Pictured above, Kent Härstedt, a survivor of the Estonia disaster, and Esa Mäkelä, formerly Master of the Silja Europa and on-scene coordinator of the search and rescue response, address the conference. )

121 delegates, from 36 different countries, attended the 2010 conference. It was reported in the October 2010 edition of LIFE LINE, and a full conference report may be found in the Members’ Library on the IMRF website.

While the 2010 conference highlighted the many problems associated with mass rescue operations (MRO), it was always our intention to move on to try to find some solutions too. The 2010 event was the first in a series.

The IMRF’s MRO project has therefore continued. One of the work streams at the World Maritime Rescue Congress in Shanghai last August was devoted to the subject: please see the report in our October 2011 issue.

And now the planning has begun for the second in the ‘Gothenburg’ series of specific mass rescue conferences.

The overall conference aims & objectives are to: 

Provide an international focus on mass rescue at, or by, sea or on other waters



Provide a forum for discussion



Identify specific problems which would benefit from further research & development



Identify potential amendments regulation and guidance; and



Compile and host a dynamic, compendium of practical data.

to

international web-based

We are now moving on from the initial focus on the problems to a clear focus on actions. So the following additional objectives have been set for ‘Gothenburg 2’: 

Provide an interactive opportunity to enable discussion of all aspects of a maritime MRO



Provide practical exercise opportunities on aspects of MROs



Agree practical projects for MRO improvements for the IMRF to take forward; and

Delegates will not - we hope! - end up in the water themselves, but it is intended that there will be a number of practical exercises for the stout-hearted.

The conference on 4-5 June will centre on an extended ‘tabletop’ exercise. Informed by keynote presentations, delegates will be able to consider the issues arising from a maritime mass rescue scenario and to discuss responses with colleagues from across the SAR spectrum and around the world.

The opportunity to consider the problems and to discuss solutions will be of great value in itself. But, as our objectives identify, the IMRF aims to go beyond this and produce outcomes of potential use to anyone who may become involved in mass rescue on or by water, wherever they may be.

The conference will be of direct and immediate interest to any and all of the following: SAR Coordinators & other MRO planners; Rescue Coordination Centre staff (SMCs); SAR boat people; SAR aircraft people; shoreside emergency service responders - medical, fire, police, local authorities, volunteer organisations; passenger shipping companies, including masters & emergency response coordinators; masters of ‘vessels of opportunity’, who will be essential to MRO at sea; State & regional responsible authorities, including civil contingency authorities; offshore oil & gas industry representatives, including support vessel masters; P&I club representatives; and so on.

The fee will be €500 for IMRF Members, €750 for nonMembers. This will include all conference activities, transport to & from hotels, lunches and an evening barbecue by the shore at Långedrag.

Bookings will be taken from 1 February 2012 - and we advise you to book early, for space is limited and we anticipate great interest in this important event.

Watch LIFE LINE for more detail or, to register early interest, please email: mro@international-maritime-rescue.org

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LIFE LINE

IMO Awards for Exceptional Bravery at Sea

December 2011

News from Brazil

Efthimios Mitropoulos, Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) is inviting nominations for the 2012 IMO Bravery Awards.

Nominations may be made by UN Member States, intergovernmental organisations, or non-governmental international organisations in consultative status with the IMO, of which the IMRF is one. However, as the IMRF sits on the panel which will assess the award nominations in due course, we ask that nominations be made by one of the other routes - usually your parent State. (Please note that the nominee need not be a national of that State.)

To be considered, nominations must relate to actions performed in the period 1 March 2011 - 29 February 2012, and must reach the IMO by 16 April 2012.

The purpose of the Award is “to provide a unique, international recognition for those who, at the risk of losing their own life, perform acts of exceptional bravery in attempting to save life at sea or in attempting to prevent or mitigate damage to the marine environment”.

For further details, and the nomination form, please see IMO’s Circular Letter no.3223, which is available for download from the Members’ Library on the IMRF website, under ‘IMO Bravery Awards’.

IMRF Trustee Jorge Diena writes: ‘I wanted to tell you about my first official IMRF presentation, at a Water Safety Conference in Itajaí, Brazil organized by IMRF Members Sea Angels. The conference was held during an important commercial fishing exhibition: that area is one of the main fishing ports of Brazil.

‘The other presentations were given by a Portuguese water safety school, a Chilean boat builder, a Ugandan lifeboat service founder (Tim de Wet), a Brazilian Navy officer, a lawyer, and a university researcher who has developed a program similar to AIS. I had the opportunity to present the IMRF in the first speech and ADES in the last one.

‘This was my first visit to Sea Angels. Although a young organization they already have some important things running. They have 10 to 15 trained volunteers, a wellplaced (borrowed) piece of land to install their first station on, two jetskis, local recognition for their work, an organized plan to work with schools, and an impressive will to keep things running. What they don’t have much of is funding.

‘Together with Tim we hired a truck to reposition a container to be used as their station and we bought the wooden poles to build a proper roof. We also made the first two holes for the poles, and after that we left them to finish the rest!’

Pictured above is Captain Seog Hae-gyun of the Republic of Korea, Master of the chemical tanker Samho Jewelry. Capt Seog was presented with the IMO Award for Exceptional Bravery at Sea 2011 “for his decisive, brave and courageous actions to protect his ship and crew during a vicious pirate attack in the Indian Ocean, which left him with serious and long-lasting injuries”.

Special Certificates of Commendation were also awarded to the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centres at Falmouth (UK) and Stavanger (Norway), “for their contribution, on many occasions, to SAR operations in areas far away from their respective SAR regions”.

Jorge’s proposal that an annual South American SAR conference should be held was accepted at the meeting in Brazil.

Eight certificates were awarded to “highly commended” nominees - including personnel from IMRF Members China Rescue and Salvage and the United States Coast Guard - and a further eleven letters of commendation have been sent to other nominees by the IMO.

The 2012 event will be hosted by ADES in Uruguay, and the 2013 conference by the newly formed Junta Nacional de Botes Salvavidas de Chile, which unites the lifeboat institutions of Valparaíso, Arica, Iquique, Los Vilos and Quellon.

Details of all these brave actions may be found at:

It is hoped that in 2014 the conference may move to Argentina. There is interest in founding a lifeboat service in Buenos Aires - and, on behalf of the IMRF, Jorge will be helping with that.

www.imo.org/MediaCentre/PressBriefings/Pages/60bravery-2011.aspx.

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LIFE LINE

December 2011

More IMO News

News from the North Atlantic

Forthcoming IMO Sub-Committee meetings of particular interest to those involved in maritime SAR are the Ship Design & Equipment (DE) Sub-Committee, 13-17 February 2012; the Radiocommunications and Search and Rescue (COMSAR) Sub-Committee, 12-16 March; the Standards of Training and Watchkeeping (STW) Sub-Committee, 30 April - 4 May; and the Navigation Sub-Committee, 2-6 July. The parent Maritime Safety Committee has its next meeting 16-25 May.

As reported alongside, the IMRF is co-sponsoring a paper at the IMO’s DE Sub-Committee meeting in February on the subject of ‘recovery’ - how to get people out of survival craft or the water itself into high-sided ships not designed for the purpose. With our fellow sponsors - Australia, Iceland, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the United Kingdom - we are trying to address the rescue problem in areas where dedicated SAR units either do not exist, or which they cannot reach within survival times.

Further details may be obtained by Members from David Jardine-Smith of the IMRF Secretariat (d.jardinesmith@internationalmaritime-rescue.org).

David will represent the IMRF at the DE SubCommittee meeting. The IMRF is cosponsoring a paper on the vexed issue of how best to improve ships’ capability of recovering people from the water - in cases where no dedicated SAR units are available or they are insufficient in number (in a mass rescue situation, for example) or they cannot arrive in time.

IMRF Members may obtain a copy of the paper - DE 56/3 - from David, as above; and you are urged to bring it to your Government’s attention with the request that consideration be given to supporting it at the meeting.

David will also represent the IMRF at COMSAR. Among many other matters of interest to the IMRF will be the outcome of our work on updating the IMO’s guidance on cold water survival. We will also be reporting the results of the August 2011 World Maritime Rescue Congress to the Sub-Committee.

More on all these matters in future editions of LIFE LINE.

But, while we certainly hope to improve ships’ recovery capability, we are not saying that ships are not carrying out such rescues already. They are, as they have always done. Here are three recent examples.

On 29 October the cruise ship Norwegian Gem, on passage from Bermuda, launched her rescue boat to recover the five crew of the yacht Sanctuary, in distress in gale force conditions 350 miles from New York.

(Video of this rescue may be found on YouTube.)

In the dark early hours of 9 December, in a near-gale with a 3.5m swell running off the Bay of Biscay, the seven crew of the coaster Florece took to liferafts after their ship had been in collision with the chemical tanker Afrodite. Falmouth Coastguard picked up their EPIRB alert and coordinated their rescue by the heavy-lift ship Ocean Titan (pictured), one of several ships to respond to the distress. Despite the high wind and heavy sea, Capt Christopher Hill was able to manoeuvre Ocean Titan close enough to first one raft, then a second, to enable contact to be made with a messenger line.

The rafts were then hauled alongside a ladder and the Florece’s crew (three from the first raft, four from the second) were able to climb aboard. The recovery operation took some 80 minutes from the time Ocean Titan arrived on scene.

Florece herself sank shortly after Ocean Titan had arrived. Afrodite was not badly damaged, but had been unable to launch her fast rescue craft to aid Florece’s crew because of the sea conditions.

Falmouth Coastguard coordinated another rescue after receiving an alert from an EPIRB 480 miles southwest of the Canary Islands.

The beacon belonged to the rowing boat PS Vita, taking part in a trans-Atlantic race. The closest ship to the distress position was the cruise ship Crystal Serenity (seen below from a survivor’s viewpoint! ), 120 miles away on passage from Lisbon to Miami. Capt Jon Økland turned back and, in the early morning of 14 December, a red flare was sighted. Despite a force 6 wind and a 3m swell, Capt Økland was able to manoeuvre Crystal Serenity close enough to recover the two rowers direct from the raft they had spent over ten hours in after PS Vita capsized.

Three fine examples of seamanship - and 14 lives saved. page 8

LIFE LINE

News from Canada Sad news, unfortunately, of two incidents that show the dangers of boating and of SAR in the far north.

This is the scene of a tragic incident in northern Manitoba, Canada. Four young people were travelling from Garden Hill to Wasagamack on 4 November when their boat grounded on rapids in the Island Lake River.

They remained aboard for a night and most of the next day before attempting to swim to the nearest land. Only one of them made it. He struggled through frigid water to a snowy shore, then spent two days and two nights in a makeshift shelter without fire, food, shoes or dry clothes.

The alarm was raised with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police th late on the 7 : too late to begin a search that night. Police and up to 250 residents of the area in boats, along with officers in a chartered helicopter, began searching the next day. The empty boat was spotted stranded in the rapids, and the survivor was rescued shortly afterwards. The last of the youngsters’ bodies was not found th until the 13 .

We recount this very sad story here partly because it reminds us of the fact that the IMRF’s mission is to try to improve life-saving on all the world’s waters, not just the sea or sea coasts; and partly because it highlights two important concerns we have on our agenda.

Without prejudging any enquiry into these sad deaths, it does seem reasonable to suggest that, if the four youngsters had had some sort of communications device with them, they might have raised the alarm shortly after their boat stranded on the rapids - thus removing the perceived need to get ashore. The first need in SAR communication is the need to be able to call for help. If radios or mobile phones do not work, and GMDSS-type alerting devices are

December 2011

inappropriate, what about the other devices now coming onto the market?

News from New Caledonia

The IMRF is beginning to consider what it can do to improve water safety by the prevention or at least the mitigation of accidents. Helping improve alerting capability falls clearly into this category.

The second case from Canada occurred in October, in the Fury & Hecla Strait, far away in the northeast of the country, in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut. Two men were out walrus hunting from Igloolik when the weather deteriorated unexpectedly. The wind rose, temperatures fell and sea ice began to form, trapping them. They had registered their trip and had a beacon with them - but they were obliged to spend the night in an open aluminium boat in an Arctic blizzard.

SAR aircraft located them next day.

A telephone was dropped, but the men could not reach it. Then the aircraft dropped a survival boat, into which the men transferred before their own boat sank, taking all their gear with it.

Three Canadian Forces SAR technicians parachuted to their aid but only one of them was able to reach the raft. Eventually all five men were recovered by a Cormorant helicopter (of the type shown here) which had flown some 1400 miles from Gander in Newfoundland.

Coastguard New Zealand report that they are strengthening their international ties with New Caledonia through the signing of a Memorandum of Intent with the Société Nationale de Sauvetage en Mer (SNSM), to foster training and resource sharing.

Coastguard President Colin Small (pictured above at the helm of an SNSM craft at Noumea) said: “This visit will give our team of volunteers a chance to take part in training exercises with SNSM which can be used as education tools back in New Zealand.

“It’s great that we are able to foster our international relations with New Caledonia and work together to help keep our countrymen safe on the water.

News from New Zealand Following work on mass rescue operations at the World Maritime Rescue Congress in Shanghai, a session on the same subject was planned for Coastguard New Zealand’s Annual Conference in November.

But tragically one of the SAR Technicians, Sgt Janick Gilbert, died during the rescue.

"Canada's landscape,” said Prime Minister Stephen Harper, “Is one of the most challenging in the world in which to conduct SAR operations: it extends over 15 million square kilometres and encompasses the world’s longest coastline.

"Sgt. Gilbert was an extremely brave Canadian who made the ultimate sacrifice while proudly serving his country."

The aim, writes Coastguard’s Dick Hilton, was “to stimulate thinking within our organisation and also to let our SAR partners and lead authorities know that we want to assist, and that we are prepared to invest resources into planning and practicing scenarios and to imbed preparation and procedures into our normal operational planning.”

Because mass rescue events are not ‘normal operations’, building in the planning for them is a vital first step to successful response if and when the time comes. page 9

LIFE LINE

December 2011

A SAR news-stand?

As suggested in this edition’s ‘SAR Matters’ on page 3, good communications are essential to successful SAR. This is true at all levels - including at the level of communications between SAR organisations. By sharing information and experience we can learn from each other. Why learn the same lesson twice, after all?

Communication of this sort is very much what the IMRF and this newsletter are all about, of course. But there are many other excellent sources of SAR news.

In our October edition we mentioned the SAR// Clippings published periodically by Scotland’s Maritime Rescue Institute. In this edition we would like to highlight two other publications - very different in one sense, but with many shared, lifesaving aims.

First, the Proceedings of the United States Coast Guard. While the USCG have many missions in addition to SAR, the Fall 2011 edition of Proceedings is entirely dedicated to Search and Rescue.

To that end, the IMRF Secretariat would be pleased to help Members ‘spread the word’ by including links to their publications (or, for smaller files, the publications themselves) on the IMRF website.

If you would like to put a copy of your publication on the IMRF’s ‘news-stand’, please let Ann Laing know, at a.laing@internationalmaritime-rescue.org.

Postscript As this edition of LIFE LINE ‘goes to press’ the BBC News website is reporting two mass rescue operations in very difficult conditions.

The drilling rig Kolskaya was under tow some 125 miles off Sakhalin island when it capsized in a storm. Fourteen people have been rescued but it is feared the rig overturned before the rest of the 67 people on board could escape into life rafts. Rescue efforts have been hampered by poor weather conditions: high winds, 4 metre seas, and temperatures around minus 17°C.

Proceedings is available in an online digital edition that can be read from laptop and desktop computers as well as mobile devices including iPad, iPod Touch, iPhone, Blackberry Torch and Playbook, and most Androidpowered phones and tablets.

Go to www.uscg.mil/proceedings and click on the cover picture to view.

Secondly, we would like to welcome the very first issue of another ‘sister’ publication, the newsletter of the Antigua and Barbuda Search and Rescue organisation, ABSAR. While not available (yet!) in quite so many ways as the USCG’s Proceedings, the ABSAR newsletter shows what can be done these days in the way of letting other people know what your organisation is, and what it can do, and what its needs may be.

‘It pays to advertise’, they say - and in SAR we know that it certainly pays, in lives saved, to communicate well.

At the same time, but much further south, a rescue operation was under way after a boat carrying hundreds of migrants towards Christmas Island sank about 55 miles from Java. Bad weather overwhelmed the heavily overloaded boat, and again affected SAR operations. So far only 33 people have been saved out of more than 200 reported to be aboard.

Discussing mass rescue operations at the World Maritime Rescue Congress in August we were challenged to think of the problem in terms of where we would like to be in a few years’ time.

That is both easy and difficult to say. But the need to make progress is clear. Watch LIFE LINE for news especially about the IMRF MRO conference in June.

And finally...

We hope that you have found this issue of LIFE LINE informative and interesting. We know that there is much more going on among IMRF‟s membership that could be reported here, to the benefit of all - but we rely on you, the reader, to tell us about it! LIFE LINE and the IMRF website need you to provide their contents - your news, your projects, your events, your ideas, your lessons learned.

We also need your pictures, please: good quality pictures (more than 250 kB, if possible) of your SAR units - boats, ships, aircraft, RCCs etc. These will be used in LIFE LINE and on the website - but are also needed for presentations and to accompany press articles about the IMRF and its worldwide work.

Please send articles and pictures (or links to them, with formal permission for them to be used for IMRF purposes) to news@international-maritime-rescue.org.

Let’s spread the word, for the benefit of all at risk on the world’s waters.

LIFE LINE page 10