Boats Bushwacking and Bodies

While the crew is specially trained in search and rescue, they do spend a lot of the time with maintenance work. They tow the Zodiac to points all around the lake’s 23,750 square kilometers on bushwhacking outings to clear overgrowth from some of the narrower rivers running into the lake (only the Nelson River flows out of Lake Winnipeg). At other times they maintain navigational aids, making buoy checks as far north as Norway House. Or they take a brush and touch up the colours on the Vakta. But when they get a call, the maintenance and busy work stops. Crews relish downtime in a job that includes bailing, towing, bushwhacking, saving lives and body recovery.

THE VATKA
Bartley and his men put the 16-metre Coast Guard Cutter Vakta (Vakta means “on watch” or “on patrol” in Icelandic) in the water on May 4. Built to the specifications of an ocean-going vessel, the Vakta can range up to 480 km from the dock in Gimli Harbour at a cruising speed of 17 knots (almost 20 km/hr). Down in the front of the hull is a small room with a hot plate, bar fridge and a washroom. Two small spaces, each smaller than a park bench, serve as beds.

“What do you expect?” says Bartley with a laugh. “It’s only a $3 million cutter.”

A crouched walk through a short hallway under the ship’s bridge leads to the engine room. “You don’t want to be down here when it’s rough,” Bartley yells, crouched on a narrow gangway between the two 460-horsepower engines that give the Vakta her power.

Bartley says only a few details separate the Vakta from similar “lifeboats” the Coast Guard uses in the Pacific Ocean, such as the fact that the Vakta is not self-righting. “That doesn’t matter, though,” Bartley jokes. “If we ever sank, you could probably climb to the fly-bridge and be above water.”
Elaborating, Sparks says he surprises people when he tells them how shallow Lake Winnipeg is. “There are some spots here where I’ve seen a hundred feet of water, but in most places Lake Winnipeg’s only about 30 feet deep.”

SEARCHING
The Gimli station gets about 40 to 50 calls per year. Often, the calls come from people on shore worrying about boaters who have gone out on the lake too long for comfort. “If everyone had a VHF radio, that would make things on this lake a lot easier,” says Bartley.

On the Vakta’s bridge, he shows off a direction finder that can locate signals from boats equipped with a VHF radio transmitter. The crew can easily pinpoint a typical commercial vessel. The fishing boats all have loads of communications gear, but finding a lost or missing pleasure craft usually means a search. “Often we’ll find them taking shelter from the weather,” says Bartley. “But there are a lot of islands out there and a lot of corners and inlets to get lost in.”

In fishing season, they help boaters get loose from nets caught up in propellers or wrapped around a sailboat keel. “In another month, parts of the lake will be filled with fishing vessels. It’s like a maze out here,” says Isfjord. Just as often, they end up finding boaters out of gas or broken down and needing a tow.

“It’s a lot of quality entertainment,” says Isfjord, joking at the preventable nature of many calls. But the aloof front is as shallow as the lake. “That’s why this lake’s so wicked, because it’s shallow,” says Sparks. “It changes fast. I’ve seen it go from calm to six- and eight-foot waves in minutes. Boats do sink here.”

They know it’s dangerous for boaters and swimmers. “Lake Winnipeg claims four or five lives a year,” Sparks adds. Last year, the crew helped locate and recover the body of a drowned swimmer lost in the previous season. “The skin was black, and loose. It was a local boy, too,” said Isfjord, trailing off. “It was bad.”�

The Zodiac
• Twin 90-horsepower outboards drive the Zodiac Hurricane 660. At 6.5 metres, it’s small enough to catch air jumping the wake of the Vakta.

• The coxs’n sits in the front-centre seat, driving the boat; the radio operator sits in the rear-left seat; and the navigator sits to the rear-right.

• The Zodiac can right itself. If the boat goes hull-side up, a small tank of compressed air on the frame over the boat inflates a rubber bladder to flip it upright again.�

 Training for the Coast Guard
• The Coast Guard has no swimming requirement. “You don’t have to know how to swim,” says Sparks. “You just have to know how to stay in the boat.”

• Basic training for the Coast Guard includes a Rigid Hull Inflatable Operators Training (RHIOT) course, a Marine Advanced First-Aid (MAFA) course, and a Marine Emergency Duties (MED) course.

• On top of that, Bartley, Isfjord and Sparks all trained as rescue specialists. “But we’re used to being called ‘hero’,” says Bartley. Rescue specialist training takes place for two weeks every three years. It’s essentially first-responder training, making the rescue specialist like a paramedic on water.

• Last year, the Gimli crews trained with military search-and-rescue technicians, recovering the SAR-techs after they jumped into the water from the back of a transport plane.

• In order to drive the Vakta, Bartley also took the Small Vessel Command Course offered at the Coast Guard College in Nova Scotia, and he had to meet requirements set out by Transport Canada for a Master Limited certificate.

 The Drysuit
If the Vakta’s crew ever does have to ditch, drysuits, or “gumby suits” will keep them comfortable enough. Tight cuffs and collar on the one-piece rubber suit trap enough air to keep a body floating and relatively warm. “Water saps your heat 25 per cent faster than air,” Sparks note