Vero Marine’s Lindsay Ross presents the diesel salvage pump to Coastguard Mana Vero Marine recently donated powerful diesel salvage pumps to Coastguard New Zealand Units in Mana and Kapiti for use in the Cook Strait, around Kapiti Island and at Mana Marina.
The pumps replace the smaller petrol-driven pumps used by these Units to date, which require more frequent topping up and are dangerous to work with when refilling around a hot motor. The new pumps may be stored at the Coastguard bases or, if their vessel is large enough, on board.
Coastguard Kapiti Coast were extremely grateful for the pump and thanked Vero Marine, saying "Although we already had a fire pump, it was a petrol-driven one, which has disadvantages in wet conditions. The use of a diesel pump will not only give us greater reliability, but the pump will run for a considerably longer time without refuelling – a major advantage if continuously pumping out a stricken vessel at sea."
When attending to a distress call that a vessel is sinking, the Coastguard Units can use the pumps to pump out the vessel while making temporary repairs to the hull before towing or to give the vessel sufficient buoyancy when towing to safe harbour. The pumps can also be used to fight fire on another vessel from onboard the Coastguard boat, or to assist the Department of Conservation if there is a fire on Mana or Kapiti Islands. A keeper’s house burned to the ground on Kapiti recently and the Coastguard were heavily involved in transferring fire fighters and equipment to the scene.
Vero Marine Wellington Regional Manager, Lindsay Ross recalls that "For the past three years, the pumps have been stored in Westport, ready to be helicoptered to any of our clients’ vessels in distress off the rugged West Coast. Instead of continuing to store them ourselves, we decided to put them to better use. They may yet save a Vero client’s vessel from going to the bottom of the sea."