Unit Commanders Report
Executive March 2026

We have had a couple of busy weekends and I’m pleased to say our members have done us proud.

The biggie was the weekend on 28 February when a yacht failed to follow the channel markers and the leads out to sea and ran aground on the sand on the northern side of the channel. Were had concerns with this vessel on Friday when the duty crew were of the view that the vessel was not seaworthy had no motor and rightly so refused to tow the vessel out to sea.

It wasn’t the seaworthiness of the vessel that caused the issue but the skippers lack of seamanship. No skipper in their right mind would take a vessel out over breaking surf. Our boat, RWCO and communications team did a great job.

A debrief was conducted on Friday with our members involved in the incident. We had a great rollup and the incident was discussed in detail and a couple of recommendations made including a LOP advising not to tow vessels out to sea.

I’ve been informed that our new jetski is closer, its having the MRNSW marking put on it this week and hopefully we will have it soon.

We have had further discussions with HO regarding the replacement boat for LM30. The new boat will be a 11.3 metre Naiad with the same size cabin as LM30 but with the extra beam will allow for a walk around deck which will make is safer for our crews. The downside is the cost is just over $1million which means our contribution would be $200,000. At this stage we are at the costing stage and the build has not commenced yet.

Our fundraisers are back in action with their brand new gazebo which looks great. Unfortunately the Pelican Markets isn’t doing well with a reduced number of stalls which means less shoppers, less ticket sales

Stewart and I attended the regional UC/DUC meeting at Newcastle last week. Its always interesting hearing who the other Units are going and the challenges that they face. I don’t like to brag but we are do pretty good and are in a good place.

We had a visit from Leanne Chandler the Unit Commander of Cottage Point last week to look over LM31 as a possible replacement for one of their vessels. Darrell and Ian took them for a short spin on the lake and they were impressed with the boat . Apparently they hadn’t gone far when the said Yep this is the one.

Jim Wright
Unit Commander