The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) provides a search and rescue (SAR) service for Australia. Their search and rescue region covers the Australian continent and large areas of the Indian, Pacific, Southern Oceans, and Australian Antarctic territories. This region is nearly 53 million square kilometres (one-tenth of the Earth’s surface) and borders the search and rescue regions of 10 other countries.

For this episode, we are joined by Linda Berryman, whose role at AMSA involves providing specialist advice on distress alerting, communication and safety systems, of which she has over 20 years of experience.

Linda joins us to discuss some of the huge developments that have just taken place for marine safety, providing the boating community with some of the greatest technological advancements in over 30 years.

SHOW NOTES

• • The Search and Rescue maritime desk can be contacted on a 24-hour helpline 1800 641 792 or 02 6230 6811. Also, consider using your marine radio to communicate with the Coastguard, Water police, or nearby vessels and communicate your nature of distress and the assistance required.
  • 406 MHz distress beacons must be compliant with the Australian and New Zealand standard, AS/NZS 4280.1 (EPIRB) or AS/NZS 4280.2 (PLB), and programmed with the Australian country code ‘503’ to be registered in Australia > list of beacons currently available to be registered in Australia and New Zealand.
  • Click here to learn more about marine radio, passage planning and sea survival training courses we offer.