Central Okanagan Search and Rescue is seeking donations to up its game on Okanagan Lake.
The volunteer team assists with rescues and recoveries on Okanagan Lake using a Remote Operational Vehicle (ROV) to search the depths of the lake. The vehicle, called the Kraken, is in need of some new parts.
One of the pieces the team is looking to buy is sonar to go on the Kraken, said volunteer Mitch LaRue. "When it's underwater, it gets pretty dark down there; it can be really silty and there can be junk in the water. It can be hard to see far. That sonar is going to be able to look through that and pick up objects up to 100 feet away."
The other piece of equipment needed is a global positioning system, or GPS.
"Something that will tell us where the ROV is underwater," LaRue said about how the technology would help. "Right now we kind of navigate through bearing lines and offsets... So, we kind of know where it is. But whenever we find something, it's very difficult to find where that actually is and difficult to find it again."
LaRue commented on the search for a landslide victim in Okanagan Lake near Fintry back in April. The search volunteer said that had the Kraken been outfitted with these pieces during the search, he estimates the time it took to locate the man would have been cut in half.
"We'd be getting back to families within a day or two on that search area we're looking at versus potentially waiting for a dive team to come off the island with better equipment, or us taking five or six days to do it," LaRue said.
COSAR is looking to raise between $50,000 and $80,000 for the upgrades.
Learn more about the volunteer group or make a donation at .
