Volunteer rescue organisation Auckland Coastguard christened the newest addition to its vessel fleet on Thursday, August 8.

In 2012 a vessel named Beyond Vegas was thought to be the first pilot boat in the world to be fitted with Volvo Penta’s integrated propulsion system (IPS). Fast forward seven years and it has been re-named and reborn with enhanced performance and diverse capabilities through a major refit and modification program at Australia’s Dongara Marine.

Marine Rescue NSW is the volunteer rescue organisation throughout the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) and is subsidised by the NSW Government.

The organisation has just celebrated its tenth anniversary and has recently received AU$37.6 million (US$26.5 million) of funding from the NSW State Government to help deliver purpose-built rescue vessels, upgraded operational centres and improvements to the marine radio network.

Boats with wheels were once common in military inventories, but they were essentially trucks that floated. Some sea rescue boats are wheeled for beach launches, as are vessels of several wealthy waterfront property owners.

Access to Seven Spirit Bay Wilderness Lodge in Australia's Northern Territory is extremely difficult overland. It is far easier by aircraft and by boat, emphasising the remoteness that guests are about to experience.

Yamba Welding and Engineering has delivered the first of four Naiad RHIBs to the Australian Border Force. Nominally 12.5-metre vessels, they measure in at just under the critical 12 metres.

The Esperance Volunteer Sea Rescue Group has a huge area of responsibility, and its boat needs speed and range, and the ability to use both of them in sometimes spectacularly bad weather. The conventional aluminium boat it had used for 16 years had sometimes come up short on those capabilities.

The requirement for the tender for the Tasmania Police vessel was something of a contradiction. It needed to be compliant to the local NSCV 2C survey yet still remain a simple vessel that allowed the operators the ability to use the vessel for a broad range of compliance operations in a variety of sea states in and around the island state of Tasmania.