Geelong Coast Guard's new boat

Coast Guard Geelong (Flotilla 8) is a long established organisation which generally operates through the southern end of Port Phillip Bay and out the notoriously dangerous Rip into Bass Strait.

Commander Peter Barrow joined the Coast Guard in 1963 and has been Commander since 1986. "We desperately needed a bigger boat to replace our Savage aluminium hull," Peter said.

"Our Savage is running a pair of Yamaha 90hp 2-stroke outboards and we have been exceptionally happy with these engines. When it came time to put a specification together for a bigger boat that would give us a more extensive patrol range, we requested that Yamaha be specified in the tender document."

"Our association with Geelong Boating, our local Yamaha dealer, goes back over 30 years. We looked at alternative hulls, but we knew that the Yamaha and Geelong Boating combination was the very best available."

The Geelong Coast Guard selected an aluminium vee bottom hull design as it was felt that this configuration best suited the local water conditions. While the Razerline 8.5m model is rated to carry 600hp on the transom, the dual 200hp Yamaha four stroke engines provide more than enough power and sheer grunt for both routine patrol work and towing.

Fitted with 17" pitch props, the optimum cruise speed of 25 knots (46 km/h) is achieved at 3400 RPM. Fuel consumption at this power setting is a very impressive 25 litre per hour per engine.

Yamaha said that this shows just how far their engineers have extended fuel economy - the 2009 model F200 uses the same amount of fuel as an old 2 stroke 90.

With 500 litres of fuel on board, the new Coast Guard boat has a cruise range of 10 hours at 25 knots or a distance of 250 nautical miles (460 kilometers). And when there is a genuine emergency to attend, the Yamaha engines can be wound out 6000 rpm for a wide open throttle speed of 40 knots (75 km/h).

In an ever changing scenario in the area of emergency services, the Coast Guard boat is also a fully accredited CFA (Country Fire Brigade) unit. The boat has a portable CFA certified mobile water pump for fire fighting and can be called on by the CFA to attend boat fires if required.

Of course getting a new Coast Guard boat onto the water is made possible with a sizeable $135,000 grant from Marine Safety Victoria. Under the Boating Safety and Facilities Program, the Minister for Roads and Ports (the Honorable Tim Pallas) awarded the funding to Flotilla 8 who through their own resources raised a further $64,000 to complete the project.

According to Brad Last at Geelong Boating, the addition of a big new boat for the Coast Guard at Geelong is a benefit to boaters and the community.

"This is an exceptional effort," Brad said. "In addition to the boat being built to survey standards, only high quality equipment has been used and installed. This ranges from the electronics to pumps to safety gear - all the equipment on board is the highest quality marine gear."

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