A THANK YOU TO DAVE ROWE
‘It depends on the weather.’

The last few minutes of any interview can produce the best stories. Past SPRS Vice President, Skipper and Head of Training, Dave Rowe was no exception. He is quite the contradiction. English born, quietly spoken, very capable and generous… But there he was, in earlier years, a Royal Air Force Warrant Officer serving in the first and second Gulf Wars and onto Afghanistan in Air Command. Also a diver in many seas (Scapa Flow in Scotland and Ascension Island both favourites), a canal boat owner, a husband and father, a volunteer and a happy, relatively new immigrant to Australia.
These large aspects of Dave’s life came out late in our 40-minute conversation as Dave’s mind was focused on what he had been doing since 2011 when he joined the Southern Peninsula Rescue Squad as a volunteer. It was after I had turned off recording the interview that I ventured to say Dave had had an interesting life, only to be then offered what seemed secondary in his life now. But perhaps this quiet, clever man is the only one who knows.
Dave has contributed mightily to the SPRS. It is his way. But it is also his training, as working in a collaborative way with crews or units of men is how he has seen things done, and done well.
Dave was in the British Air Force for 38 years as an aircraft engineer working on C130s and air-to-air refuelers—VC10s. ‘I was crew chief on those and often travelled the world. I also worked on helicopters and Jaguar fast jets. It was a great job.’
Since joining the Rescue Squad, Dave has brought all of his personal and professional skills to SPRS. ‘I’m a diver. When I was in the UK, I did a Coxswain’s course with the British Sub Aqua Club and qualified with them, and as I was in the military I could do courses, so I qualified in the dive boats; the SPRS was a natural progression.’When asked what it was like to go out of the heads at night, Dave’s reply was, ‘It depends on the weather.’
‘The nub of the squad is if you don’t have the training, the rest of it’s not going to run because the crews need to know what’s required of them when they go out on a job… whether it’s a tow, a search, a broken down boat, whatever.

Training is critical for the efficiency and safety of the squad. We have to be professional as well as look professional when we go out on the job.

Dave was out on a January roster and they got a call about a tourist boat, a catamaran, that when coming through the heads had snapped a mast. ‘We were told to go out and bring him back in, but it was really, really rough. We managed to get the boat in tow, but his mast was in the water and we couldn’t get close enough to cut the mast away, so we just had to tow him through. It was a fair-sized cat… maybe 15 metres. We were struggling. Obviously it was dragging the sail. Coming through the heads you have only a narrow gap to get through, with rocks on one side. I felt unsettled because we weren’t making a great deal of headway and we had to keep the boat clear of the rocks… but we managed. The police were out there keeping an eye on us… two of our members were seasick, but that’s how it goes. We got the cat in.