Nearly 50 years after Canterbury volunteers began rescuing boaties in their own jet boats, the Kaiapoi-based unit has received international recognition for the specialist river rescue capability it built along the way.
In 1978, two separate fatal boating accidents on the Waimakariri River bar prompted a group of Canterbury locals to do something about it. They formed the Waimakariri Ashley Rescue Lifeboat Society, based at Kaiapoi, but there was no purpose built rescue vessel waiting in the shed. For that first year, volunteers headed out in their own jet boats.
The organisation they started is now Coastguard North Canterbury. Its crews still work the Waimakariri, although these days their reach extends well beyond it, into fast flowing rivers and floodwater across Canterbury.
That work has now earned the unit a Higgins & Langley Memorial Award, the first presented to a New Zealand organisation.
Finding the right boat for the Waimakariri
The fledgling rescue society acquired its first dedicated boat in 1979. Sponsored by Asher Sawmill and named Asher I, it was a double ended, propeller driven vessel. It did not take long for the volunteers to discover it was poorly suited to the sort of bar and river work they were asking it to do.
By November 1980, Asher I had been replaced by the jet powered Asher II. Four years later, the boat demonstrated just how unforgiving that work could be when it capsized twice during attempts to rescue the French yacht Fixen. The unit kept going, learning from experience and changing its boats as the job demanded.
In 1998 came Kaiapoi I, a 6.8m Naiad that would serve the unit for years and receive a refurbishment in 2010. The organisation itself was changing as well. The Waimakariri Ashley Rescue Lifeboat Society became Waimakariri Ashley Coastguard in 2006, then Coastguard Waimakariri Ashley in 2011. In 2018 it took the name it carries today, Coastguard North Canterbury.
A year later, Kaiapoi Rescue joined the fleet. The 8m Barnett Offshore Design vessel was built by Icon Marine and equipped with twin jets, continuing a relationship with jet propulsion stretching back almost four decades.
By then, however, the volunteers were increasingly being asked to go somewhere a conventional Coastguard rescue boat was not necessarily the answer.
The job starts moving further upriver
Repeated requests for assistance from Police had shown there was another role for the Kaiapoi based unit. In 2018, it formally added specialist swiftwater rescue to its marine search and rescue capability. Coastguard says 26 percent of the unit’s operations since then have been swiftwater related, and North Canterbury remains its only dedicated swiftwater rescue team.
That work can take volunteers a long way from the coast. Their operating area extends from the Rakaia to the Hurunui and inland towards the Southern Alps, where shallow water, strong currents and constantly changing riverbeds present a very different set of problems.
The unit needed a boat designed for those conditions, and in 2024 it got one. Blackwell Rescue is an Outback Boats Extreme 47, a 4.7m inflatable hull swiftwater vessel powered by a 50hp outboard jet. At its launch, Coastguard described it as the first vessel of its kind in New Zealand specifically designed for swiftwater and flood rescue.
Its shallow water ability allows the crew to reach stretches of river that are beyond a conventional Coastguard rescue vessel. Icon Custom Boats also fitted an arch to provide rollover protection and some protection from low hanging obstacles.
Getting Blackwell Rescue into remote rivers is the job of North Canterbury Mobile 1, a modified FUSO Canter 4×4. It carries the boat and rescue gear, with winches for recovery, scene lighting and three VHF radios. The truck can ford rivers itself, while Starlink Roam was included in the 2024 plans to improve communications where normal coverage runs out.
Putting the new capability to work
The first official test of the new swiftwater setup came in May. A person and two dogs were stranded on a ute in the Waimakariri near Eyrewell Forest, and Blackwell Rescue headed upriver from Kaiapoi while another crew approached by road. All three made it safely ashore.
Before the month was out, four young boaties needed help further up the Waimakariri. Their jet boat had broken down near the Eyre River junction, about 10km upstream from the public ramp behind Christchurch Airport. By the time Coastguard reached them it was after 8pm, and the four were cold and wet.
Blackwell Rescue went up the river while North Canterbury Mobile 1 supported the operation from shore with lighting and communications. All four were wearing lifejackets and were brought safely back.
“The river is always shifting, and with low visibility it’s easy to get caught out,” Coastguard North Canterbury Vice President Logan Pryce said afterwards.
The Cass River presented a very different job in late August. A man had been swept downstream near Craigieburn Forest Park, bringing Police, LandSAR, the Westpac Rescue Helicopter and Coastguard into the search. North Canterbury sent six volunteers, three aboard Blackwell Rescue and three working along the bank as daylight began to disappear.
Nearly 50 years of volunteer work recognised
At the same time the unit was continuing its work back home, President Kevin Bryce and Unit Training Coordinator Callum Alexander had travelled to Oklahoma City. On 27 August they accepted the Higgins & Langley Program and Team Development Award at Riversport OKC, making Coastguard North Canterbury the first New Zealand organisation to receive a Higgins & Langley Memorial Award.
The award recognises sustained investment in swiftwater and flood rescue training, education, resources and team development. For Bryce, however, the recognition belongs to considerably more people than the two volunteers who travelled to collect it.
“This award reflects a collective effort spanning many years,” he said, acknowledging North Canterbury’s volunteers, Coastguard, training partner Public Safety Institute Global and the local community that helped fund the specialist rescue equipment.
The award was presented at Riversport OKC on 27 August, with Bryce and Unit Training Coordinator Callum Alexander there to receive it.
Back in Canterbury, Kaiapoi Rescue and Blackwell Rescue remain working boats. One covers the coast, bar and bigger water, while the other can disappear upriver behind a 4×4 when the call comes from somewhere a normal rescue boat cannot reach.
For a unit that started with local volunteers bringing their own jet boats, that’s quite a fleet to have in the shed.
