What starts out as a routine patrol, checking seal colonies and amateur fishermen, quickly becomes a life and death race through ten metre seas to save the sixteen-man crew of the stricken maxi-yacht, Skandia. This episode is a testimony to the skill of police skipper, Leigh Stanley, and the bravery of his four crew members.
In this episode we look at a number of life and death situations as well as the on-going training regime the Marine Police undertake. We follow dive and chopper squads as they search for the body of a man washed into a swollen river in Tasmania's northwest. As well, we follow a squad on the Van Diemen as they head into the Southern Ocean to rescue a lone, round-the-world, Norwegian sailor. His motor has broken down and he's foundering in big seas with storms on the way.
We meet local 'Water Rat', Constable Matt Thomasas, as he stakes out a marine reserve in Bicheno. He's had information about a fisherman who is pulling other people's craypots. Matt talks to professional and amateur fishermen, fish processors and deckhands in order to get to the bottom of the craypot ratting mystery.
It's the dead of night and a squad of Water Rats meets up at a small country police station on Tasmania's east coast... Armed with information that a local fisherman could be illegally carrying a pistol and committing fisheries offences, the police set off on a covert surveillance operation.
