New Zealand: A whale of a rescue tale

 

 

NEST's Sikorsky S-76A helicopter can carry two pilots, four medical attendants, and two patients on stretchers.

Because of a little help from the Rotary Club of Whangarei and six other clubs in New Zealand’s Northland region, Lindsay Wright can tell the tale of the day he was 112 miles off the coast of New Zealand napping in the bunk of his trimaran yacht when he heard a loud crack. He jumped out of bed and found himself up to his knees in water that was pouring through a 3-foot-wide hole in the bow. He ran up to the deck and saw a whale perpendicular to the side of his boat. Then five more whales began swimming extremely close.

Wright’s first thought on that January day was that they were going to finish him off, but he soon changed his mind. “It was a powerful emotional experience,” he says, “having six huge mammals looking at you. I had a feeling of empathy from them, as though they were saying: ‘Oh, no. What have we done? How can we help?’ I had an overall sense of goodwill from them.”

The yacht had been going slowly when, Wright surmises, it accidentally hit and startled one of the whales. He figures that the whale instinctively dived, causing it to flick its powerful tail and damage the hull.

Wright immediately tried to call for help, but his radio was waterlogged and out of range. So he activated the vessel’s emergency position-indicating radio beacon, which emits a distress signal to a satellite system that relays it to a receiving station on the ground. Computers then determine the vessel’s location, and a rescue crew can be dispatched.

Wright’s signal reached Northland Emergency Services Trust (NEST), a nonprofit in Whangarei, New Zealand, that performs free land and sea rescue missions and emergency medical airlifts with two helicopters. The donation-funded NEST sent out a chopper that had equipment to track Wright’s signal.

The US$4,800 equipment was courtesy of New Zealand Rotarians. The Rotary Club of Whangarei and six other clubs in New Zealand’s Northland region donated about $2,900 to buy the gear, and a trust established by a Whangarei club member supplied the balance.

By the time the helicopter arrived to rescue Wright, waves were starting to wash across the boat, the weather was deteriorating, and it was getting dark. An exhausted Wright stood clinging to the mast. The rescue team lowered a winch with a harness and hoisted him up.

“Believe me,” Wright says, “that helicopter was a welcome sight.”

Send questions about NEST to John Bain.