The accolades keep rolling in for the Waikato Regional Council's maritime services team for their hard work around water safety.

Working with other agencies, the team developed water safety smartphone app MarineMate and a series of bar crossing films which won them a special award from the Coastguard during August.

This week the WRC announced the team won three more awards for its smartphone app and bar crossing films.

They received a second major award from Water Safety New Zealand for its role in promoting the bar crossing films.

Their MarineMate app won a Collaboration award and the Supreme Award at the Association of Local Government Information Management awards.

The app was also a runner up in a category at the New Zealand Spatial Excellence Awards.

Water Safety NZ says the WRC was awarded the 2014 Sealord New Zealand Water Safety Award for Prevention for its work on the films.

'We appreciate the invaluable contribution that the Waikato Regional Council has made to water safety in New Zealand,” says Water Safety NZ chief executive Matt Claridge.

The bar crossing films present expert knowledge for boaties to cross notorious ocean bars in Waikato and the Bay of Plenty, at Raglan, Tairua, Bowentown and Kaituna.

While the ALGIM awards recognised the number of central and local government organisations that provided information for MarineMate.

The project was managed by WRC maritime services manager Nicole Botherway and provides a wide range of boating safety information for users throughout the country.

Nicole says she is proud of MarineMate because it is the answer to an information problem for all types of water-users.

'It really has helped to get important information out to the masses in a fun and user friendly manner.

'Improvements and updates have come about through feedback from users through the app store or to us directly which enabled updates to include VHF channels.”

The icing on the cake was MarineMate reaching the finals at the NZ Spatial Excellence Awards, plus a runner-up award in the ‘People and Community' category.

Nicole says it was satisfying the bar crossing films have had over 19,300 views since they were made available in July, while MarineMate is close to 22,000 downloads after being released last year.

'So besides being popular with the award judges it's clear that boaties are finding these new safety services very valuable.

'We're confident these products will help contribute over time to safer boating and fewer boating-related injuries and fatalities.

Nicole says MarineMate and the bar crossing films are two really great tools for Waikato boaties strongly encourages people to use these freely available resources.

To view the bar crossing films visit: www.waikatoregion.govt.nz/barcrossing.