Plenty of room for four
Small safety craft suits CADETS' NEEDS
BY GUY DITFORD
The purchase of a new safety craft for the Sea Cadets from TS Cornwell in
Christchurch may not be groundbreaking news for the maritime industry, especially after all the quakes and shakes Cristchurch and her surounding districts have endured over the past year.
W
The safety craft allows instructors to keep a close eye on the cadets
22 NZ WORKBOAT REVIEW 2012
hen the Sea Cadet organisation started the purchase process it had just fixed its unit headquarters up after the effects of the February earthquake, not knowing
they would be hit with another in June. With the unit buildings out of action it was good to get some good news. Certain criteria surounded the wish list while we went looking for our new safety craft. Given our cooler sailing area in open, often wet boats, the cadets had to be able to shelter out of the wind. She should be low maintenance and be able to handle the waves created by a Canterbury nor'easterly gale. She would also need to cross the Sumner bar safely on occasions, as TS Cornwell is based on the Christchurch estuary. Being a rescue craft, she would be first on the water and last off. The wish list gave us a number of options. We looked at an alloy boat with a cuddy-type bow or the same in plastic or fibreglass, as this would give the shelter needed. We couldn't find anything suitable from stock designs, and modifying an existing design would be costly so was out of the question.
One of the other units in Christchurch had purchased a
4.5m Wavebreak from GP Engineering a year earlier which looked good, but we had reservations. When we saw a 4.9m version purchased by TS Waireka in Dunedin she ticked all the boxes.
