A member of the coastguard for life
A man responsible for launching Coastguard South Taranaki is in the organisation for life.
Hawera’s Gary Darnell has been awarded life membership to the region’s chapter.
He has no idea how many calls he has attended in the 20 years since its inception but he remembers one particularly well.
‘‘A rescue off Opunake in 2012 was in probably the worst conditions I’ve ever seen,’’ he said.
‘‘The weather was atrocious. It was 10 o’clock at night, pitch dark, pouring with rain, it was probably 45 knots wind and I had to send the guys out,’’ he said.
‘‘Undoubtedly without them, the two guys wouldn’t have survived.’’
Coastguard was started because there was no set organisation responding to boaties in trouble on the water.
While everyone stepped up when necessary, Darnell said there was a large element of risk involved and establishing a body of people trained to respond with the proper equipment was a way to mitigate that risk.
‘‘We all get great pleasure out of being able to make a huge difference on the water and certainly in a number of incidences we’ve managed to bring people back to their families who may not possibly have made it without our assistance,’’ he said.
‘‘That’s pretty rewarding and we certainly have a really dedicated team now, they’re really great.’’
Darnell was president for nine years, then vice-president, secretary for six years and is back in the hot seat again as unit president.
He is the first person to be awarded life membership to South Taranaki’s chapter.
‘‘It’s quite a surprise actually. It’s quite humbling to be recognised by your peers for something like that,’’ he said.
‘‘It certainly wasn’t expected.’’
He was awarded Coastguard Central Region volunteer of the year 2009 and then won Coastguard New Zealand volunteer as well.
He is the search and rescue marine controller and is always involved with training and as examiner for VHF exams and shares his experiences in the day skipper and boat master courses.
Darnell credits the whole team with South Taranaki’s success.
‘‘Without them we wouldn’t have a Coastguard anyway, so I’m very surprised and very humbled.’’