Community backs drive to kit out beaches with flotation devices
THE theft of a lifesaving flotation tube from a Far North beach has done little to dampen the spirits of a charity set up to help prevent drownings.
Operation Flotation was started by Pat Millar after a wha¯nau member, Wairongoa Renata, drowned at Cable Bay in January 2018 while rescuing a group of children, including his daughter.
‘‘I thought, ‘we don’t want that sort of thing happening again’,’’ the Doubtless Bay woman said.
Water Safety New Zealand said flotation devices – even those as simple as an empty milk bottle – can help prevent drownings, so Millar initially tied a fishing float to a tree at Cable Bay for emergencies.
But she was quickly backed by the community, which donated money for purpose-built flotation tubes that cost $220 to buy from the United States.
The Far North District Council and its contractor Recreational Services made boxes for the tubes, and five were initially installed at Cable Bay, Taipa¯ and
Coopers Beach with input from the council and Nga¯ti Kahu.
Since 2018, the concept has spread around the Far North, as well as to Whanga¯rei’s Bream Bay and Coromandel’s Opito Bay. There are now 17 tubes and boxes in these areas.
Operation Flotation trustee Jo Cole said it is testament to community support of the project that just two floats have been stolen over two years.
One of the floats was taken from Cable Bay on Labour Day, but the charity has replaced it and donations have funded another back-up, she said. Another float was stolen from the same site about a year earlier, but that was also covered by donations.
‘‘There was some negativity at the beginning that they would get stolen, but they’ve been there two years now,’’ Cole said.
‘‘The option of not having a device because they might be stolen wasn’t a risk that we were prepared to take. We’d rather have them there.’’
Naysayers also thought the bright yellow boxes would be covered in graffiti but that has not been the case, Cole said, and volunteers regularly check the boxes and tubes are in order.
Another criticism was that the tubes either would not be used in an emergency or would encourage rescuers to take unnecessary risks but Cole said the tubes were about providing a means of flotation in an emergency, not encouraging people to be superheroes.
‘‘The reality is that Wairongoa [Renata] went out to save his daughter . . . A parent is going to go and save their daughter but if they have a flotation device it would make a bit of difference.’’
Tubes have been used for at least one rescue, and Waipu Cove Surf Life Saving Club has been involved with teaching water safety at Cable Bay, Cole said.
Operation Flotation’s aim now is to encourage more beach communities to get behind the project, fundraising for their own tubes and boxes.
Community fundraising helps ensure local buy-in to the concept, Cole said. ‘‘If one or two tubes go missing a year, for whatever purposes, the cost of that versus a life is not worth thinking about.’’