Winter boating warning

Press, 1 May 1978, Page 1

Winter boating warning

Small-boat sailors should remember the dangers of winter weather, a spokesman for the Canterbury Volunteer Coast Guard Service said yesterMr H. M. Barrowclough said the service's duty boat had been involved in two incidents where small craft had got into difficulties on Lvttelton Harbour at the week-end. Both had ended well, he said, but thev were situations that could easily have developed into something more dangerous. According to Mr Barrowclough. seas had been

quite rough, with the tide ebbing, and a strong northerly wind blowing. In the first incident, a small sailing dinghy got into difficulties when its tiller broke. A runabout went to its assistance but the skipper fell overboard, and his wife was not fully conversant with handling the boat She fired a flare, but her husband eventually managed to swim back to the boat while another craft took the sailing dinghy in tow. Another dinehv capsized about five times in the strong wind, while the C.V.C.S. duty boat stood by. At one stage a crew

member drifted away from the upturned hull of the dinghy. Mr Barrowclough said he believed that sailors should think carefully about going out in that type of weather, especially if assistance was not readily available. “Both of those incidents ended haonily. But the point is that they were situations that might not have ended well at all.” If the service had not been keeping a ■watch for any trouble, he doubted whether anybody would have gone to the assistance of those involved in the two incidents.

"As far as I am aware, hardly anybody saw the flare that the woman quite correctly let off.” In the May school holidays many young people would be out on the water in small boats. It was important that they were aware of the risks they were running in going out in strong weather, Mr Barrowclough said. This year the service had been involved in 24 incidents, he said, most of them connected with small boats. There would have been many more that the service had not heard of.