PRINCE FREDERICK — When someone goes into the water off Calvert County’s 243 miles of shoreline, the volunteers sent to find them will soon have a boat built for exactly that job.
The Calvert County Rescue Dive Team announced Oct. 19 that Boat 12, a custom dive-rescue landing craft built by Stanley Aluminum Boats, has arrived. Members are now training on the vessel and finishing final readiness steps, according to the team’s announcement. The team has not set a date for the boat to go into service.
Boat 12 is designed for search, rescue and recovery on the Chesapeake Bay, the Patuxent River and surrounding waterways. It carries sonar and night-vision equipment for searches in poor visibility, and a split-helm layout gives an electronics operator a dedicated workstation next to the skipper and crew, the team’s press release says.
That layout is the point of the design. On a search, the sonar operator reads the bottom while the skipper holds the boat on a pattern over the water. Putting the two side by side lets them work as one unit instead of relaying information across the deck, at night or in rough water.
Doug Coupar, the national fire rescue representative for Stanley Aluminum Boats, called Boat 12 a “cutting-edge vessel for its advanced search and rescue capabilities.” Coupar, who has worked with the team on the project for more than three years, said the dive team understood from the start “the increased challenges of working on the Bay in wide-ranging weather conditions,” along with growing boater traffic.
A volunteer team on the 911 system
The dive team is not a club. Founded in 1988, it is an all-volunteer 501(c)(3) nonprofit that is part of Calvert County’s 911 emergency response system. It covers the entire county and provides mutual aid to neighboring jurisdictions, and its charter covers dive rescue, dive recovery and other water and ice rescues.
Its calls include missing swimmers and boaters, boating accidents, vehicles in the water, evidence recovery for law enforcement and storm-related water emergencies, according to the team’s Calvert County Chamber of Commerce profile.
The new boat is the latest in a year of equipment upgrades. In May, 12 members finished the Dive Rescue International Interspiro technician course, which certifies them to inspect, maintain and repair the full-face mask systems divers wear on public safety dives. With certified technicians on the team, that work can be done in-house rather than sent out, which the team said cuts downtime and servicing costs.
Funded by the community
The announcement did not say what Boat 12 cost, how it was paid for or which boat, if any, it replaces. As a volunteer nonprofit, the team raises its own money to keep its boats, vehicles and dive gear ready, and its release thanked the residents, businesses and community partners whose support pays for training, equipment and readiness.
Donations can be sent to the Calvert County Rescue Dive Team, P.O. Box 1159, Prince Frederick, MD 20678. Questions go to info@ccrdt.org. The team posts updates, including when Boat 12 enters service, on its Facebook page.
