Barrie's waterfront was awash with weekend water warriors as reservists with the Royal Canadian Navy conducted training and tested their rescue skills.
Members of seven naval reserve divisions in the Ontario central division, from Thunder Bay to Kingston, dropped their boats into Kempenfelt Bay for the exercises on Saturday and Sunday.
“The training will allow the teams to refresh skills in navigation, launching, beaching boats so when the time comes to provide support to the provincial or federal government for a callout for help to support flooding, ice storms, search and rescue we’ll be prepared,” said Paul Smith, commanding officer of HMCS York of Toronto, who was on hand answering questions from curious onlookers.
The training in Barrie was designed to provide the crews with exposure to Kempenfelt Bay to allow them to become familiar with different waterways. Plans are in the works to conduct a similar activity in Muskoka.
The reserves is made of a cross-section of individuals who are generally working or in school full-time who train in the evenings and weekends with opportunities to deploy in the summertime. Their role is to assist the regular forces when required.
“We accomplish that by doing exercises like this for specific skills, but we also train people in their trades to deploy either in the east or the west,” Smith said. “We have reserve members overseas, we have reserve members in every class of vessel that we have.
“It’s a very diverse crew.”
HMCS York has a detachment in Barrie that trains in the Barrie Armoury.
