Niue fishing crews are being urged to bring life jackets in for servicing during a New Zealand-led maritime safety workshop on the island this week.
Life jackets. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
New Zealand's Pacific Maritime Safety Programme is holding workshops to educate local fishing crews and equip them with safety devices.
It follows a similar programme for canoe fishers in Niue earlier this year.
Programme manager David Billington said life jackets would also be checked to see how different types responded to Niue's climate and environment.
"What we've had is a few incidents where people have been wearing life jackets and they haven't been serviced properly and they have not inflated," Mr Billington said.
"But they're finding issues with life jackets after six to seven months because of corrosion because of the high humidity," he said.
"We've asked them to bring all the life jackets to the workshops and we're going to open them up to have a look and see if we can actually identify if there is an issue. And if there is we will bring them back here to the manufacturers here in New Zealand."
