Five people dodge night on rocks as swamped tinnie sinks off Northland’s Cape Brett

Coastguard boat Bay Rescue II approaches boaties stranded on rocks after their tinnie sank near Cape Brett. Photo / supplied

Five people were lucky to avoid spending a night perched on jagged rocks — or a possibly worse fate — after a small boat sank in the Bay of Islands.

The 5.5m (18ft) tinnie was swamped suddenly about 6pm on Saturday near The Sisters, a group of rocks off Cape Brett in the vicinity of Bird Rock.

Five people, understood to be the skipper, a passenger and three divers, were thrown into the water.

Bay of Islands Coastguard president Phil Snowdon said the volunteer rescue group was alerted about 6pm. The vessel Bay Rescue II left Dove’s Bay Marina shortly afterwards and arrived at The Sisters at 7.05pm.

A private vessel was first at the scene but the large fibreglass boat was unable to get close to the rocks, so waited at a safe distance until Coastguard arrived.

Snowdon said it was fortunate the female passenger, believed to be an overseas visitor, managed to hold on to her waterproof cellphone as the boat went down. She then called 111.

All five swam to nearby rocks. When the rescue crew arrived they found two people perched on top of one rock and three on another.

One person was clad only in underpants — it was thought he had been wearing jeans but managed to take them off after the boat went under so he could swim — and had suffered cuts and grazes from the sharp rocks.

A private vessel waits off The Sisters while Coastguard boat Bay Rescue II approaches the stranded boaties (circled). Photo / supplied

Rescuers were able to pick the woman directly off the rocks while the others swam to the Coastguard boat. No one was wearing a lifejacket although the three divers were wearing wetsuits which provided buoyancy.

Snowdon said the group was taken to Paihia with the intention of getting them checked out by St John medics. However, no ambulances were available and the rescued skipper vanished.

Instead, the remaining four were taken back to Urupukapuka Island to collect their belongings and car keys.

They were then taken back to Paihia again with the volunteer crew eventually getting back to Dove’s Bay around 1am.

Hypothermia was not a threat, even though one man was left wearing only undies and the female passenger had only a bikini, because the evening was warm and all five were waiting “high and dry” on the rocks.

The rescued party told the Coastguard crew the boat sank after a wave washed over the stern.

The marooned divers signal from the top of The Sisters, a group of rocks off Cape Brett. Photo / supplied

A witness who had seen the boat earlier said it had little freeboard with five people on board and a 150-horsepower outboard.

“They were very lucky. If she hadn’t managed to hang on to her cellphone they could’ve spent all night on the rocks,” Snowdon said.

The sudden sinking was a stark reminder of the need to use common sense on the water this summer, in particular the requirement that everyone on boats under 6m should wear a personal flotation device while the boat was underway.

“Also, make sure you don’t overload your boat — it’s quite common for boats to swamp and flip when they’re overloaded — and have multiple forms of communication. In this case, it was very lucky the woman managed to rescue her phone.”

Snowdon advised boaties to tell someone where they were going and when they expected to get back, for example by using the Coastguard app.

It was also worth joining Coastguard because members didn’t pay if their boat needed towing, as well as other benefits.

Two of the divers await rescue after the boat they were in was swamped and sank off Cape Brett. Photo / Supplied

Snowdon said the Coastguard crew — Rafe Tollemach, Blair Stanley and Conrad Pieterse — were newly trained but had already proved themselves with a series of successful rescues.

That included a potentially more tragic incident off Cape Brett at nightfall on December 30 when a 5.5m boat with four men on board capsized 11 nautical miles (20km) off Cape Brett.

They spent an hour and a half clinging to the upturned hull before help arrived.

One of the men had managed to swim under the boat and activate the emergency locator beacon.

None of the four was wearing a lifejacket.

The boat was thought to have capsized when all four moved to one aft corner of the vessel at the same time. Alcohol was a likely factor.

At the time Snowdon said: “Given the state of the sea and the state of the crew they are very lucky to be alive. It’s a timely reminder that people in small craft need to wear personal flotation devices. It’s also a reminder that excessive alcohol and boating do not mix, especially at night,”

Nine out of 10 boating deaths occurred in small craft through capsize or sinking, he added.

Three members of the stranded group, one with cuts and grazes to his legs, make their way down off the rock to Bay Rescue II. Photo / Supplied

With summer now finally making an appearance Northlanders are being urged to use common sense in the water, both in boats and on the beaches.

It’s not just Coastguard volunteers who have been busy — surf lifesavers carried out 15 rescues during the Christmas long weekend alone.

In 2022, 91 New Zealanders died in the water with 18 of those, or one in five, in Northland.

The Enchanter disaster, which claimed five lives, was a factor in Northland’s high numbers, but even without that Northland’s water deaths were well up on 2021′s total of 10 fatalities.