Dave Teale is a Tauranga Volunteer Coastguard crew member who wears two hats. He's on the ‘wet crew' on the boats and he is also a radio operator, where you will hear him every second Friday morning.

Being involved in both sides of the operation gives Dave a unique insight into the whole organisation and helps him to see how reliant each side of the unit is on each other.

Our radio operators are fully trained and are familiar with the local area. The rescue boat crews are the volunteers that the public see most often.

There are four crews who are on duty for call out, 24-hours a day, one in every four. All volunteers go through a comprehensive, ongoing training program.

The Tauranga Volunteer Coastguard is also part of the national search and rescue resources that NZ Police and Maritime New Zealand can call on to help find someone.

'There is huge satisfaction in getting someone's loved one back safely,” says Dave. 'I have never regretted joining Tauranga Volunteer Coastguard.”

Volunteers are the lifeblood of the Coastguard and they are the locals who live in our community and help our local boating community.

Tauranga Volunteer Coastguard are very dependent on local volunteers to ‘save lives at sea', but on the flip side, are also dependent on local members funding through local membership, says unit manager Steve Russell.

'We need our local boaties to support our local units through new membership and our existing members,” he says, 'ensuring they renew annually with their local units.

'Local Units are where the ‘rubber hits the road' when it comes to saving lives at sea. As the saying goes, ‘buy local - keep it local'.”