Jumping off of the city bridge and swimming around vessels was also advised against, but most rowing clubs were okay with swimmers using their pontoons as long as they respected rowers.
As for beaches, the council said Castlecliff and Kai Iwi Beach will be patrolled by lifeguards from 12 noon to 6pm every day over summer.
Whanganui Surf Lifesaving Service president James Newell said how busy the season will be for them would come down to the weather.
Guards will first take up their posts in a couple of weeks and he said beachgoers should expect to see a lot of young and new lifeguards patrolling the beaches this summer.
“We’ve got a lot of new young, fresh guards this year, we’ve got a really good intake of young guards,” he said.
As well as new lifeguards, Newell said, people should expect to see a lot of new equipment on the beach for lifeguards and trainees.
The service was able to buy this new equipment thanks to a $4200 grant given to them by the Mazda Foundation.
The money will mostly be put towards the club’s training programme for children, which Newell said has been a huge success.
Thirty kids are in the programme at present and it’s so popular some have had to be turned away.
Newell said the best part of the training was how it gave the kids a purpose.
“It’s just fantastic to see how keeping kids busy and interested, how their personalities change,” he said.
The best advice he had for people keeping themselves safe at the beach was to pay attention to lifeguards and their flags, move if they ask you to move and talk to them if you need help.
“They’ve got to look at what the lifeguards are doing, they’ve got to listen to the lifeguards.
“We move the patrol area quite a lot during the day, but for reasons. At different times we have different problems,” he said.
Recently, Water Safety New Zealand (WSNZ) called on the Government to make urgent changes to require everyone on boats which measure under 6m long to wear lifejackets.
Legislation only requires the skipper have on board correctly fitted life jackets for each passenger, which WSNZ has said is not adequate.
Coastguard Whanganui president Garry Hawkins said it should be mandatory that everyone wear a lifejacket while a boat is moving.
“In all reality, if you’re out there on the water you should be wearing your lifejacket.”
But Hawkins said whether people would wear the jackets comes down to personal responsibility, and questioned who would enforce this regulation change on boaties if it were to go ahead.
“Even if the law was changed to make it mandatory for everyone to wear lifejackets I’m not sure who’s going to enforce that law.
“It certainly wouldn’t be the Coastguard, we’re not a law-enforcement agency,” he said.
Coastguard New Zealand’s Old4New lifejacket upgrade campaign will be happening in Whanganui on January 14.
The campaign is a partnership between the Coastguard and Hutchwilco and allows boaties to buy new lifejackets at a discounted price by bringing their old jackets to the Coastguard.
Hawkins said that in a previous year as many as 140 jackets were sold in four hours, thanks to the campaign.
He said people should follow the Coastguard’s five simple rules of the boating safety code.
Those were to wear your life jacket, to stay within the limits of your vessel and experience, to bring two waterproof methods of communication, to check the weather forecast before departing, and to refrain from drinking alcohol while boating.
Personal locator beacons were ideal in situations where people needed to be rescued and could make contact with Whanganui Coastguard.
“You don’t have to be a Coastguard member, anyone can log a call ... Call us up, tell us where you’re going, how many people you’ve got on board, [and] when you intend to return and if you don’t return at the assigned time we’ll start calling out and come looking for you.”
He also advised that people radio the Coastguard to let them know they’ve returned so they don’t go looking for people unnecessarily.
