Boating officer clocks up 30 years

After 30 years' loyal service with the Roads and Maritime Services, Rory O’Hara has some pearls of wisdom to share. And, as we head into the first week of school holidays and a busy Easter boating time in NSW, Rory's ready-made team will be hard at it on the water.

You see, Rory is Senior Boating Safety Officer (BSO) and heads the Marine Safety Education and Compliance Team (MSECT), which means he spends a lot of time keeping boaters safe on waterways across NSW.

"I love my job keeping people safe on the water. The number of boats has increased quite dramatically in the past 30 years, along with the size of boats, which creates new challenges," Rory says.

In 1991, at 25, Rory claimed he was the youngest BSO to join the State boating regulator, then known as the Maritime Services Board.

In those days, jetskis or personal watercraft (PWC) were not a particularly popular form of watercraft and not used to carry out boating safety patrols.

Now aged 56, Rory leads a team of roving BSOs in the Marine Safety Education and Compliance Team known as MSECT, which carries out patrols mainly using PWC due to their manoeuvrability and mobility.

Rory and the six member MSECT team cover between 10,000 and 14,0000 kilometres a month on the road, moving between areas where the local BSOs require back up during large aquatic events, for compliance work in boating safety operations and to carry out checks of commercial vessel operators on behalf of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.

"We take our patrol craft with us — mostly PWC and some rigid inflatable vessels which are light enough to easily lift out of the water and place on a trailer," Rory said.

Rory has always worked around the water, starting at the Royal Australian Navy as Quarter Master Gunner before starting in a unique role based on Goat Island in Sydney Harbour.

"In those days Goat Island had wharf contractors, builders and shipwrights and an amenities park. There was a massive two-storey pontoon, like a floating work site, about 10 metres square with a meal room downstairs and the foreroom upstairs.

"My job was to arrive at 5am, open it, clean it in the morning and then clean it again and close it down at 1pm."

But it was during that first few weeks of his time and Goat Island Rory had a lightbulb moment which set him up for his next career move.

"I saw this BSO come to the island – I’d never heard of the BSO role before and it sounded like it would be right up my alley. I had my sea time but I didn’t have my qualifications so I went and got my masters qualifications. I studied part-time for six months – I’d leave work and head off to TAFE twice a week."

Fast forward to 1991 when Rory was successful in applying for a job as a BSO, working first in Sydney Harbour before being transferred to Botany Bay, near where Rory has lived in Sans Souci for 25 years.

In 2013, he successfully pitched the idea of creating a roving team of BSOs to help out where needed across NSW.

He also is the man behind the design of the official BSO uniform shoulder patches, which incorporates the southern cross, stars and anchor.

"I’ve done a lot of things in my time at Roads and Maritime, including helping out rescue groups in a search offshore for an aircraft which crashed off Port Hacking, helping remove mail and dollar notes from the water."

Like many of the State’s first responder agency colleagues, Rory also attended his fair share of boating incidents including tragic fatalities.

"It’s all part of the job," he said. "Both my sons are in the navy — somehow the ocean is just in our blood."

Meantime, there are more than 60 BSOs based at key waterways across NSW, carrying out boating safety education and compliance work.

BSOs patrol all navigable NSW waterways including dams, lakes and offshore, as the face of Roads and Maritime on the water, sharing a wealth of information about boating safety requirements, marine legislation and water traffic.

BSOs carry out random safety checks to ensure licences and registrations are up to date and the correct safety equipment is being carried, manage moorings and provide education to school groups and the community at boat and lifestyle shows.

They also help with or control marine traffic for special aquatic events such as the Sydney-Hobart Race on Sydney Harbour. And policing the waterways at Easter...

Photo credit: Opening photo with thanks and courtesy of The Leader newspaper and shot by Chis Lane.