Sharing safety on the sea
Tony Parr is a man of the sea, and he wants to pass that knowledge on to others.
Parr, Port Taranaki harbour master and retired Royal New Zealand Navy Rear Admiral and Chief of Navy, has just returned from Niue, a small island nation in the South Pacific, where he held workshops on marine safety as part of Maritime NZ’s Pacific Maritime Safety Programme.
‘‘It’s a universal sort of thing but most Pacific islands, they’re defined by the sea because they’re surrounded by it,’’ he said. ‘‘They live and breathe it.’’ A lot of the process was introducing and getting the islanders up to speed on the technologies – such as demonstrating the different kinds of lifejackets, or pointing out the difference between EPIRBs (emergency position-indicating radio beacons) and PLBs (personal location beacon), he said.
‘‘It’s technology that’s 30, 40 years old but it can help save your life when things go wrong.
‘‘It’s just a matter of being able to share stuff with others.’’
The programme was set up after a series of maritime accidents in 2009 drew attention to safety issues faced by Pacific nations, including a poor safety culture, lack of public information on safety requirements and practices, lack of regulations and few trained personnel.
‘‘When we started with it six years ago, there were three countries taking part. Now it’s seven countries.’’
They get about 30-40 people to most sessions, and target different groups such as emergency services or fisheries staff, and also the community, the wives and families, to broaden knowledge across the community.
Parr said they still heard nearmiss stories but he was confident they were having a positive impact.
The programmes help with developing or upgrading maritime legislation, training and equipment for search and rescue or oil pollution response, infrastructure for maritime safety such as VHF networks, community education and supporting maritime training to meet international standards.
They try and use existing infrastructure, such as the new 4G phone network to link to the VHS technology.
‘‘They’ve had to build towers and things like that and so we can use those towers to put VHS antenna on. The technology’s simple; it’s just seeing the opportunities.’’
This year, the programme entered its third phase of funding, with $9.5 million to be invested over the next three years across seven countries. Live power lines were reported down across a New Plymouth road after a truck hit a power pole yesterday morning.
The crash happened on Centennial Drive about 10.08am, near Egmont Seafoods, and police, fire and St John ambulance staff attended.
Centennial Dr was cordoned off between Nga¯motu and Paritutu roads to divert traffic away from the scene while emergency services worked.
A police spokeswoman said the driver was not injured. ‘‘It was reported that live wires were blocking both lanes,’’ she said.
Power contractors were also called.