Lifeguarding update: “Our busiest season ever!”

As the weather cools and beach-goers begin to retreat indoors, the NSRI’s Lifeguard Operations Managers Rebecca Carter-Smith and Mthetheleli Kweyama reflect on a successful six months.

“It hasn’t been the easiest season, but it has been a successful one!” says Rebecca Carter-Smith, the NSRI’s Lifeguard Operations Manager for the KwaZulu-Natal region, who heads up the Institute’s lifeguard division along with Mthetheleli “Mthe” Kweyama, the Lifeguard Operations Manager overseeing the West Coast.

This past summer season, both Rebecca and Mthe had their work cut out for them, thanks to the prolific success of the division’s mission to expand their operations.

“We went from 22 beaches at the start of the season in September to 74 over the December/January period,” says Rebecca. “The previous year, we only covered 29 beaches over the holiday season. It was all hands on deck.”

The success of the season, which included 4000+ preventative actions and 167 rescues, is a testament to the lengths to which the lifeguarding division and the many NSRI volunteers who pitched in to help went to, to ensure the safety of beachgoers was not compromised by this unprecedented surge in demand.

“We reached out to everyone in the NSRI’s operational department,” says Rebecca. “Typically their quiet time is over the festive season because all the stations are busy, so the operational staff don’t necessarily have to be in the office. They all stepped in and took on an extra role over the December/January period, and everyone lent a hand where they could. For example, one of our training officers went to Mossel Bay for December to run the area for us. Thankfully he didn’t have anything planned over his leave period.”

This willingness to pitch in wherever needed allows the NSRI to a high benchmark for its staff and volunteers. “It says a lot about what the NSRI is about,” says Rebecca.

“I was running the West Coast all the way from Langebaan to Mastikamma,” says Mthe. “This season, we were under contract to five municipalities in the region – about 16 beaches and 51 lifeguards. I met a lot of lifeguards I hadn’t met before, and training together was a great experience. I’m looking forward to working with them again and especially to training more people in the areas we operate in, particularly people from local communities.”

Indeed, even though lifeguards are paid – not volunteers – and additional lifeguards were employed along the West Coast, the division would not have been able to meet the high demand for their services if it weren’t for station volunteers who pitched in.

“Volunteers from Mossel Bay were travelling up and down all the beaches to check on the lifeguards, hand out equipment, lend a hand and see how they’re doing. It was awesome.”

While Rebecca, Mthe and their team were able to keep beachgoers safe despite formidable challenges, she concedes that her team will need to develop an entirely new game plan for the next season as the demand for lifeguard services is bound to remain high.

“It was a big learning curve for all of us,” she says. “Typically, we’ve run quite lean ship until this point. So we will really have to look at our structure to handle a load like this over three, four and five years.”

One of the biggest challenges is not knowing how many municipalities will be tendering lifeguarding contracts over the next festive season period.

“We’ll start looking at the equipment we have available for all the areas where we currently

have a three-year contract,” she says. ”We are now focusing on preparing our equipment for the off-season: storing it, making sure it’s ready to go for the next season and planning

comprehensive training programmes for current and new lifeguards to build on

their skills. We want to give them something more than just lifeguarding. We want to give them skills and knowledge to take them further.”

By the time the new season starts later this year, the NSRI’s lifeguard division will have a plan not only to guard more beaches along South Africa coastlines than ever before, but also to make a difference in the lives of more and more lifeguards who will receive training and acquire skills that will help them to develop both personally and professionally.