Rescue boat blessed CARRUM Coast Guard has a new vessel in its fleet. The catchily named CG207 was commissioned for service last Sunday (22 February). HMAS Cerberus navy chaplain Stephen Estherby blessed the boat before its maiden voyage. The CG207 is a Palegic boat made by PHA Welding & Marine based in Leongatha. Carrum Coast Guard commander Matt Semmens said the new boat’s distinctive design means it is a valuable addition to the flotilla. “It’s a quick response vessel based on American technology,” he said. “We can get in to really shallow water, down to about a foot of water.”
The Australian Volunteer Coast Guard has 19 volunteer Coast Guard bases across Victoria, including Port Phillip Bay and Western Port. Volunteer crews are on standby to help people and vessels in distress 24 hours per day, 7 days a week. Boaties can register their journey details before they set off via a SafeTrx smartphone app. Registering a journey via the app takes the “search” out of “search and rescue”, according to the Coast Guard. See coastguard.com.au/safetrx for details. Neil Walker
On patrol: Carrum Coast Guard volunteers Matt Semmens, left, and Mark Bainbridge at the helm of new boat. Pic: Gary Sissons
City’s reputation strains family relations Stephen Taylor steve@baysidenews.com.au FRANKSTON’S reputation as a violent, drug-riddled frontier town has split a family – and angered a woman who enjoys living there. Elizabeth (not her real name) says she and her partner bought a house in Frankston South two years ago. “We were at first reluctant to buy in Frankston because of its reputation and because the state of the Frankston CBD always left me a little cold,” she said. “Since then we have found ourselves very happy in our home, building a strong community and enjoying the
beautiful landscape and beaches of our local area. My son has just started at a great local school and my four-yearold daughter is attending kindergarten. Everything feels great.” But Elizabeth worries that living near Frankston CBD when her children are old enough to wander on their own – if it remains as it is today - would make her want to leave. “It is draining to our morale to have to constantly explain to people who do not live in Frankston that where we live there is more than the chaos caused by the drug users.” Elizabeth’s latest concerns were prompted by the refusal of her partner’s former wife, who lives in Toorak, to allow their 15-year-old daughter to catch
As a result of the violence, the mother wrote to Elizabeth and her partner when the girl was due to come for her third visit by train: “Can you please google Crime Rate Frankston? I think you'll be pretty shocked. I had hoped that the area was better than its old reputation when I was younger but, actually, crime has risen considerably in the past five years - in particular violent assault. “There are so many sex crimes against women and children that the police have had to form a separate office. Drug issues with ice are the highest in the state. It only takes one incident for our daughter’s life to be changed and I am not willing for her to take that risk.
the train to Frankston because of violence she has witnessed on the journey. “My partner’s daughter, my stepdaughter for the past eight years, had just been given the freedom to catch the train from her high school to Frankston where we'd pick her up and bring her to our home in Frankston South,” she stated in a letter to The Times. “After only the second week - on Tuesday 10 February - a violent incident occurred between a couple and a high school boy on the train nearing Kananook station. “My stepdaughter was not harmed, but the incident affected her deeply. She even comforted another, even younger girl, as they sat huddled together until they could get off at Frankston.”
“She has been on the train to your place twice and has already witnessed awful verbal and threatening violence. She has never been exposed to this stuff and why should she be? I spent some of my childhood in Werribee and it was awful. I don't want that for her.” Elizabeth now wants to know what Frankston Council doing to bring “positive attention” to Frankston? “Frankston is more than the pack of drug taking individuals that seem to line the CBD at every turn, but this is what the outside world sees and reads about,” she said. “We are very upset at how this reputation has affected our family arrangement.” Continued Page 8
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