PORTLAND’S TS Henty Navy Cadets have received a generous donation of a new boat from the Portland Police last week.

It is not a small gift to receive, at 6.5m long with a 200-horsepower outboard engine and a trailer to tow it on, and though it does need some maintenance work the cadets say they are very grateful for the donation.

The boat, which came new to the Portland Police, started off in the Victoria Police aqua play program, which saw Police taking taking disadvantaged kids out for trips on the water, in the interests of building good relationships and rapport with local officers.

The boat, built in 2006, with financial support from the state government and local companies, who are glad to hear that the boat has been passed on to be used by another youth program in the community.

“We did about 60 trips all up, a lot of trips with Kyeema, and a lot of school groups and a lot of community groups like the scouts” Sergeant Ryan Nelson.

“The program’s finished up now, it went for probably six or seven years, and then as time went on our qualified members moved to other stations.

 “So now we’ve lost a lot of qualified members, and because the boat’s a commercial vessel, we need to have people qualified to maintain it.”

Sergeant Nelson said that the boat was too good of an asset to not be used, and TS Henty Australian Navy Cadets seemed an “obvious fit” when they were looking for a group to pass it on to.

A fair bit of work has been going on behind the scenes between the two organisations to make it all work, they say there is not exactly a standard procedure for an offer like this.

 But some extra paper work was well worth it for as good a deal as they were presented by the Police, says TS Henty’s Danielle McCintock.

“It's going to be a fantastic asset to the youth, we tend to get a lot of kids that don't have anywhere else to go on a Friday night,” Ms McClintock said.

She says the boat will be used for water safety training, giving experience to new members who are less comfortable on the water, and assisting with their sailing.

“We’ve just gotten over Anzac Day, which is a huge day for all the cadets and instructors involved.

“Hopefully in the not too distant future we’ll get the boat out in the water, and take a bit of quiet time and reflect on what we've done so far, and start setting up a program for a bit more boat work for the kids going forward.”