REEDVILLE—Rescue III, Smith Point Sea Rescue’s (SPSR) newest vessel, recently returned from a week of search and rescue exercises and training with the U.S. Coast Guard and the Port of Virginia. The vessel was crewed by SPSR members Robert Gwaltney, Kendra Simpson, Don Stone and Dan Benjamin.
More than three dozen organizations participated in the event, the 18th annual Search & Rescue Forum, with classroom training in Hampton, and on-water training and exercises in Norfolk Harbor. Other than Sea Rescue, most of the organizations were based in the vicinity of Norfolk, including Virginia Beach, Newport News, Portsmouth and communities in the lower Bay and James and York Rivers.
Training sessions were wide-ranging, taught by recognized experts in their fields, reported Benjamin. Two sessions included use of side scan sonar to find people, boats and other objects in the water. Also covered were target identification and confirmation using radar and AIS (vessel Automatic Identification System), towing, flare usage and search and rescue procedures. Because not all organizations had vessels capable of night operations in open waters, Rescue III routinely took along crew from other groups as….
