Unmanned Aerial Vehicle The latest drone news
Move over Air New Zealand, there is a new safety message
in the skies – this time over the waters of the
Marlborough Sounds.
In what is believed to be a New
Zealand-first, this Saturday morning Marlborough’s
Harbourmaster will trial delivering safe boating messages by
drone with a clip-on sound system. The ground (air) breaking
project, being delivered in partnership with local radio
station brian fm, has been funded by Maritime New
Zealand.
Harbourmaster Luke Grogan said he was always
looking for opportunities to highlight boating safety and
seeing drone technology being applied to COVID-19 responses
globally sparked the idea. “Middle age blokes are often
pretty resistant to the safer boating message but it’s
this group that dominates the accident
statistics.”
“We hope that by combining drone
technology with the humour and reach of brian fm it will be
effective in encouraging people to get on board with safer
boating,” he said.
Subject to weather, the drone
will be operated from the Picton Foreshore tomorrow morning
from 9.30am by GCH UAV, accompanied by a Marlborough
Harbourmaster marquee, safe boating information and friendly
team members from Marlborough’s harbour team to help
spread the key messages.
“Our main goal is to remind
the boating public to operate at a safe speed but we will
also be using the drone to reinforce other safer boating
messages such as skipper responsibility, avoiding alcohol
and making sure they have two forms of communication,”
said Luke.
“We will also have a patrol boat on the
water to reinforce the messages being delivered from above.
If it goes well, we will move the drone to the different
ports around the Marlborough Sounds throughout the
summer,” he said.
So, if you are out on the water
near Picton Harbour this coming weekend, be prepared, not
for a message in a bottle but one from above. You have been
warned . . .
.
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