He was a teenager and went with his father, a Riverton commercial fisher, to a callout at Foveaux Strait where two locals capsized a vessel.
"We pulled two people, two locals, out of the water.
"Those people were very good local people so it stuck to my heart that if we can help out people like this all the time, I want be part of that."
And he has been doing exactly this for many decades.
Mr Anderson (67) this year became the first South Island volunteer to celebrate 50 years of service for the coastguard.
"Years are flying by and it has been absolutely great — 50 years as a volunteer skipper, accident-free.
"And it is not about any individual. The success of Riverton Coastguard is within the members that are in the unit."
Mr Anderson said during his time at the organisation, he helped 250 callouts and the organisation, since its establishment in 1958, was responsible for saving 81 lives at sea and had assisted another 565 people.
"It is quite amazing when everything is weighed up in data," he said.
His personal story was linked to the Riverton Coastguard — his family was six generations of "Rivertonians" and, consequently, they had always had a connection with the sea.
His father used to help in callouts even before the organisation was established and now his son was a skipper volunteer there.
The support of his family and his crew were fundamental to his being able to perform this work for such a long time as it could be challenging as it was a volunteer position.
He worked self-employed for most of his career to be able to help with the callouts, he said.
Although being a volunteer was not an easy role, being able to rescue children was incredibly rewarding, he said,
"In a broad sense everything that involves children, it tickles my heart."
Fortunately, he felt the numbers of callouts had reduced in recent years due to education and technology.
"We had much more callouts in the earlier years — the equipment and boats were not as good as they are now. And of course the education wasn’t there years ago."
Although the organisation had huge support from its community, one of the main challenges was funding.
He would welcome anyone who could donate and support the work of the 20 volunteers at Riverton Coastguard.
In the meantime, he wanted to keep helping the community.
When asked whether the thought of retirement ever crossed his mind, he said no.
Until he ran out of energy, he would keep helping the Riverton Coastguard to save lives, Mr Anderson said.
