With summer upon us and people taking to the water, now is the time to check if your lifejacket is up to scratch.

Coastguard’s Old4New Lifejacket Upgrade - a campaign where people can swap their old and unsafe life jackets for new ones at a discounted rate - is returning to the region on Tuesday.

The campaign is stopping in Cromwell, Wānaka and Queenstown as part of its 74-stop tour to help get more people into safe life jackets.

Coastguard head of operations Rob McCaw said it was very important for people to use right life jackets for the occasion and person.

“Too often we see children in adult life jackets or life jackets that are long past their best,” he said,

“It’s not going to help them stay alive if they fall into the water unexpectedly.”

The lifejacket upgrade there will see a range of discounted lifejackets suitable for boating, watersports, kayaking and sailing available for purchase in sizes ranging from infants to adults.

The Old4New team will also provide life jacket advice, including fitting and servicing, along with local boating safety tips and information about education courses.

Old4New is one of the Coastguard's leading water safety initiatives and throughout the country 30,000 life jackets have been replaced since the programme’s inception. 

Between 2014 and 2023, 18 per cent of all drowning incidents involved Māori, making them the second-highest ethnicity affected, after NZ Europeans (49 per cent). 15 per cent of drownings involved Pacific people, and 6 per cent involved the Asian community.

"It’s not just about boaties or open water," Rob said.

"We’re urging everyone - jet skiers, paddle boarders, rock fishers and kayakers - to wear fit-for-purpose lifejackets. No matter what your waka, make sure that you are prepared on the water, whether it’s a lake, a river, or the ocean.”

Out of the six land-based fishing drownings this year, five people weren’t wearing lifejackets or had any available.

Rob said the charity is astounded that people are still not making this one simple behaviour change.

"Lifejackets save lives. We’ve seen far too many preventable tragedies, and the message is simple: if you're on the water, wear a lifejacket."

Across nine weeks this past winter there were five incidents and nine fatalities – none of those who drowned were wearing a lifejacket. 

Find the Coastguard’s Old4New team in Cromwell on Tuesday December 17, 8am to 11am at the Big Fruit Reserve. 

Coastguard Clyde assists water users in Central including Lake Dunstan, Lake Roxburgh and the wider Central lakes and rivers. Over summer volunteers are helping by towing boats and stranded jet skis, involved in multi-week river searches, or rescuing cyclists injured on the region’s lakeside cycle trails. 

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