Weipa Volunteer Marine Rescue president Brendon Fay prepares to trial the new $2 million vessel, which will help increase the organisation’s operational capacity. Photo: Supplied.
The Weipa Volunteer Marine Rescue (VMR) will welcome its new $2 million vessel this month as the organisation prepares to transition into a government-funded entity.
Previously a charity organisation that relied on fundraising to carry out its vital work, the Weipa VMR will fall under the Queensland Police Service as of March 2025.
VMR president Brendon Fay said this was a welcome change for the community, providing rescuers with more time and resources.
“Being properly funded will mean we’ll gain access to training, which is urgently needed; we’re running very short of skippers,” he said.
“We only have a very limited number of skippers that are actually trained up and ready to go at any given time.
“There’ll be people to do all the mundane administration stuff that comes with owning a commercial vessel and keeping it in survey, and also organising the maintenance, rather than relying on volunteers, which we’re very thin on the floor with.”
Mr Fay said the new vessel would be used in conjunction with the current boat, which is the oldest one used in Queensland at 22 years old.
“We will be keeping our old vessel at this stage for long-distance rescues, because at the moment, the new vessel doesn’t have the range of the old vessel, and we cover an area similar to Cairns to Mackay,” he said.
“We’re looking at options for bringing super fuel in, and we really need to work out the range of it and how well it’s going to operate up here.
“The new vessel will be quicker and easier to launch, and it’s set out with state of the art technology; if you punch in the type of boat into the computer, it’ll calculate a search pattern and the most likely spot to start the search without us having to do it manually anymore.”
The VMR president said the group’s rescue capability had also increased with the recent addition of two jet skis to the fleet.
“If there’s a rescue on and there’s someone in the water, at the moment, it’s going to take us an hour to get the boat in the water, which is not ideal, but it’s the best of what we can do at the moment,” Mr Fay said.
“With the jet skis, if there’s people in the water, we can launch them very rapidly, and because they’ve got a lot more capability for speed, you can go and pull four or five people out of the water with two jet skis while the boat follows behind.
“It’s definitely exciting times ahead, and we’re really hoping the vessel and changes will attract more volunteers.”
