Lost at Sea: Marine Rescue Volunteers unite to hone skills FEATURED Port Stephens News Tilligerry Peninsular by News Of The Area - Modern Media - September 27, 2017 Marine Rescue volunteers gather at the LTP waterfront. ACTION aplenty on the waterways recently saw Marine Rescue units from Lake Macquarie, Nelson Bay and Lemon Tree Passage unite to hone their skills. Modern Media: Advertise with News Of The Area and you get your ad in 1) in Print, 2) on the News Website (like this ad), and 3) on our Social Media news site. A much more efficient way to advertise. Reach a HUGE audience for a LOW price TODAY! Call us on 02 4983 2134. Or media@newsofthearea.com.au[/caption] Or CLICK FOR ADVERT QUOTE This they did this in tandem with water police in a mock rescue/recovery exercise in the waters off the Port. The situation had a distress signal, reportedly from a 5.5metre white runabout with two people on board being received from an area somewhere between Broughton Island and the entrance to the Port. A visual search from land failed to locate the stricken craft so a search and recovery mission was mounted. After studying an admiralty chart and factoring in wind and tidal considerations, they marked out an area for a ‘creeping search’. This consisted of several vessels in line abeam formation covering the area. Unbeknown to them a life-size dummy and flotsam and jetsam had been set adrift to test their skills. A debriefing session at the Lemon Tree flotilla’s base station analysed the effectiveness of the operation. Commander Richard Osborne OAM recently travelled to Port Macquarie for a leadership course. “The message must be getting through,” he said. “Statistics show that over the past 12 months, rescues have fallen some 80 percent on the previous year.” By Geoff WALKER The Lemon Tree Passage rescue craft at its pontoon berth.
