SLSNZ National Beach & Coastal Safety Report 10-Year Overview | 2011 - 21 & 1-Year Overview | 2020-21

Outside the Category-1 taskings generated by NZ Police,
SLSNZ assets often respond to emergencies along their
coastline within reach of their asset base or club.
With the nature of a marine emergency and the importance
of responding within a tiny time window, SLSNZ SAR squads
will activate a response to ready personnel and equipment,
often without all the operational intelligence. The response
is often successfully executed before all the operational
information and formal police activation through a 111 call
is made.
These types of activations would otherwise lead to an
escalating situation if an immediate response were not
activated, potentially leading to fatalities if the SLSNZ SAR
response were paused until all specific information gathered
was complete.
Since 2014 SLSNZ has actively encouraged its rescue
squads to phone the Police to log a rescue that is underway
(outside normal patrolling operations) and record a tasking
number. Although this practice has increased the tasking's
captured (Figure 4.3), the number of SLSNZ instigated
emergency search and rescue responses continues to grow
faster than the police Category-1 tasking numbers.
SLSNZ Callouts are therefore not being formally recognised
in the sector reports, resulting in critical underreporting. The
disparity may result in an inequitable allocation of resource
development, training requirements, maintenance costings
and effect long term planning considerations from local
and central government.
Figure 4.3
2011-21: Cat-1 Police Tasked Vs. SLSNZ Callout Operations
500
Number of SAR Callouts
450
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
SLSNZ Tasked Response
Cat 1 Police Tasked Response
0
2011-12
2012-13
2013-14
2014-15
2015-16
2016-17
2017-18
2018-19
2019-20
2020-21
Year
SECTION FOUR
47
SEARCH AND RESCUE ANALYSIS