Montego Bay, St James – St James firefighter, acting district officer Gary Snow, does not hold an engineering degree, neither is he an accountant or mechanic. But on Thursday he was honoured for saving the Brigade some $2 million this year.

At the Brigade’s annual awards ceremony, Snow was lauded for spearheading the restoration of the parish’s fire boat, which had been out of operation for two years.

Senior deputy superintendent in charge of the parish, Dave McLaughlin, said Snow and several of his colleagues were moved earlier this year to fix the boat themselves, after the department was unable to respond to a fire aboard the cruise ship Star Princess off the coast of Montego Bay.

“The boat was out of action and wasn’t working,” McLaughlin told the Sunday Observer. “The fire aboard the ship in March propelled the whole thing and we knew we had to get it fixed.”

Before that, he said, the crucial firefighting vessel, nicknamed “Erif III”, which is needed not only to douse fires at sea but to facilitate rescue operations as well, had remained in disrepair for at least two years because of the unavailability of funds.

In accepting his award Thursday – the inaugural Superintendent’s Award – a plaque and a weekend for two at a resort, Snow said the repair was a team effort and lauded his crew mates for what he said was a mammoth task which earned him the nickname “Noah”.

“When we said we were going to fix it, many people said that was impossible but we did it,” he said as he accepted the honour.

“Basically the guys have different experiences,” he explained. “Some of them know electrical work, some know woodwork and a little mechanical work so we put all that together.”

The first three months were spent researching the make of the boat and gathering information on the Internet. Then they travelled back and forth between Montego Bay and Kingston to get the parts, some of which had to be sourced from overseas.

The boat has since been repainted and has been operational since July.

“It’s in full working order,” Snow beamed. “We have not yet responded to any emergency on the seas, but we have been able to do patrols, visit cruise ships at the dock and we participated in last month’s fire drill with Carnival Cruise Line.”

Snow, who is the boat’s navigator, added that the boat was a fine piece of equipment that is important to the city, especially as a tourist resort. “It’s a significant piece of equipment. It can go in just a foot of water and do fire-fighting and we are able to pump water directly from the sea.”

He pledged not to allow the boat to deteriorate to the state it was before, insisting: “The boat has to be maintained. We have to stay on top of our game, we can’t allow it to go the way it was before.”

Mclaughlin said he was inspired to implement the Superintendent’s Ward, which honours a member of the brigade whose efforts had helped to “lift up” the department, after seeing the work that Snow and his teammates did in restoring the vessel. He said it would now be an annual award.

“He was a motivator,” said Mclaughlin. “Others laughed and said it couldn’t be done, but he did it.

In fact, McLaughlin said the approximately $2 million that the brigade would have spent if the firefighters had not chosen to repair the boat themselves was a conservative estimate, as one contractor had quoted a $4 million fee.