Safety Equipment:

All support boats must be equipped with all the REQUIRED MANDATORY MARINE SAFETY EQUIPMENT as per the NSW Maritime regulations. These requirements can be found on the NSW Maritime web site. http://www.maritime.nsw.gov.au/sbh/safety_equipment/safety_equipment.html

Emergency Management – Vessel Safety:

It’s important for the organisers of this event to know that your vessel is in good working order for an event such as this.

• Each support boat must be capable of travelling a long distance to the starting point at Bondi Beach, move slowly alongside the swimmer during the swim, have competent crew on board and have sufficient fuel to run the motor for up 6 hours.
• The swim director needs to be informed of any incidents that occur relating to the support boat, crew or swimmer during the event. If a person needs to be transported to shore or rescued, the swim director must be informed.
• In the event of a boat emergency, all crew and the swimmer must don a lifejacket and wait for assistance. Marine Rescue should be notified of any ‘May Day’ emergencies or an emergency distress call should be made.

Sea sickness:

During the event, we cannot attend to crew sea sickness issues as we will be attending to the management and safety of the swimmers. Sea sickness is a problem for many people who are not used to being offshore or remaining stationary and we need all skippers to manage their own crew accordingly.

Swimmer Retrieval

If a vessel is to retrieve a swimmer from the water at any time during the event, the engine must be in neutral or preferably turned off and the skipper in charge of the engine gears at all times when picking up a swimmer.

Swimmer Withdrawal

The swim director must be informed immediately by the boat captain if any swimmer is withdrawn from the event. The details required if a withdrawal is taken are the swimmer name, swimmer number, proposed drop off location.

Briefing: There is a pre - swim briefing to be held on Friday night at 7 pm, two days before the swim at the Watsons Bay Boutique Hotel. Swimmer numbers and caps will be issued.

Swim Day

There is to be a radio briefing issued by Marine Rescue to the boat captains at 8:45am on the morning of the swim at checkpoint 1 at Bondi Beach beach. Support boats are to check in with Marine Rescue to advise that their swimmer is on the beach.

Boat Display of Swimmer Numbers

Boat captains are to ensure their swimmer number is displayed in a clear, visible manner on both sides of the boat in letters no smaller than 300 millimetres. Swimmer numbers will be issued at the Friday night briefing.

Check Point 1

Approximately 500m off Bondi Beach - Boat Check In - Boat captains are to check in with the swim director on board the Marine Rescue boat at Check Point 1 between 8.30 am and 8.45 am before the swim start, advising their swimmer number and displaying their swimmer number on both sides of the boat.