Hovercraft to boost rescue team’s capability

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This article was published 25/02/2022 (1194 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A hovercraft being assembled half a world away will soon help a local team of specialized divers go to work in any conditions and hasten closure for grieving families.

HEART (the Hutterian Emergency Aquatic Response Team) has ordered the futuristic $150,000 vehicle from a manufacturer in St Petersburg, Russia.

“It’ll get us out onto thin ice situations and it’ll transition from land to ice to water without a problem,” said Paul Maendel, a diver and team leader with HEART, which is run by members of Oak Bluff Hutterite Colony near Morris.

HEART currently uses boats, sonar, trained divers, and remote-controlled submersibles to conduct its underwater search and recovery missions for drowning victims.

But as Maendel explained, none of that equipment is much good during a window every spring and fall when the ice is too thin for surface activities and too thick for watercraft.

“We’re always delayed by the ice conditions,” Maendel said. “We’ve seen families wait three months for a recovery.”

The custom-built hovercraft HEART has purchased—a 6146 FC Rescue model made by Christy Hovercraft—will change that. The six-seater weighs about 1,900 pounds, can carry a payload of up to 1,200 pounds over water, and can reach cruising speeds of up to 55 km/h. Unlike an airboat, hovercrafts don’t displace water and aren’t troubled by floating debris. The vehicle will be towed from site to site on a trailer.

HEART ordered the hovercraft last year expecting a 12-week turnaround. But global supply chain issues caused by COVID-19, coupled with escalating political tensions in Russia, have delayed the manufacturing process. Based on updates from the company, Maendel said the machine should arrive this spring, just in time to be put to use during the spring melt.

Many Hutterite colonies and charities have donated to the hovercraft fundraising effort. An anonymous donor also make a large contribution.

HEART currently has six divers, half of whom are deployed on a given mission. The organization receives about one callout per month, and doesn’t charge for its services. HEART divers have been as far east as Lake Erie, as far north as Nunavut, and as far west as British Columbia.

“We’re spread pretty thin because there’s not too many other teams that have equipment that we have,” Maendel said. “We have some of the most advanced equipment in Canada.”

Maendel said technological advancements in remote-operated vehicles are making rescues safer to conduct. But weather conditions can still frustrate the best-equipped expedition. Maendel recalled times “when you have to stand down and sit in the hotel because there’s two-foot waves that hinder the search.”

Those delays are hard on the family of the missing person, on the divers, and on the divers’ families back home, Maendal said.

One recovery mission in particular convinced him a hovercraft was needed. Last May, HEART was summoned by RCMP to Eleanor Lake in Whiteshell Provincial Park to recover the body of Danny LeMay. The 50-year-old Grunthal resident had gone missing three months earlier on a solo snowmobile journey.

 

“The (initial) search was called off because the RCMP couldn’t get over top of the search area,” Maendel recalled. “We knew exactly where he broke through, problem is we couldn’t get onto the site.”

Working with the family, Maendal said an excavator was eventually brought in to break up the ice around a nearby boat launch. Once HEART was out on the water, LeMay’s body was recovered within a couple of hours.

Maendel’s research on hovercrafts led him to the Russians, who manufacture cold-weather models with an enclosed cab.

“A lot of countries were already using that specific hovercraft for search and rescue,” Maendel said.

The HEART team is planning to travel to Saskatchewan to be trained how to operate the vehicle.

As they await its arrival, Maendal said HEART is already fundraising for its next piece of equipment: a 25-foot boat with an enclosed cab that will allow them to conduct open water searches in inclement weather. The boat is being manufactured in New Zealand and completed in Seattle, Wash.