KEY POINTS:
A man who suffered severe burns when a massive gas explosion ripped his luxury catamaran apart tearfully spoke about the ordeal yesterday from his hospital bed.
Peter Murray told how he was blown off his feet and into the vessel's roof in an emotional phone conversation with his
friend and co-owner of the vessel, Aucklander Dean Bellingham.
Mr Bellingham owns a half-share in the $280,000 twin-hull boat Double Trouble with his fishing mate Mr Murray, 50, who remains in Waikato Hospital's burns and plastics ward today.
Mr Bellingham said his friend was "all choked up" about the incident and was unnecessarily blaming himself.
Mr Murray and his intellectually disabled son Michael, 15 - with his niece Leonie Sherwood and her three daughters, Samantha, 12, Ruve'e, 6, and George, 4 - suffered burns when leaking gas caused a fireball early on Saturday morning.
The explosion was so powerful it shredded the lifejacket Mr Murray was wearing, blew the top off the boat and destroyed the emergency and communications equipment on board.
Mr Murray, who was severely burned, was able to make a desperate call to police on his cellphone from Deep Cove Bay in the Coromandel.
The families, from Beachlands, were making the most of the beautiful school holiday weather when the disaster happened.
Mr Murray, who suffered the worst of the impact, was preparing to make a cup of tea using a gas cooktop to boil water.
Emergency workers said it was a miracle nobody was killed. The force of the explosion ripped the boat's roof off.
Mr Bellingham said he would be travelling to Waikato Hospital in Hamilton today to see his mate, after speaking with him on the phone yesterday.
"He was pretty tearful but he's coming right, I managed to crack a few jokes out of him. I asked him when he's getting out and the nurses had told him 'not for a while', but he said, 'Tomorrow, that's what I reckon."'
But in reality Mr Murray knew his stay in hospital would be considerably longer. He was transferred out of the intensive care unit to the burns and plastics ward yesterday.
"He said to me that he thought someone had hit him over the head with a four-by-two," Mr Bellingham said. "Lighting gas hobs, he was launched into the air and into the roof."
Mr Murray had spoken of the panic afterwards. Everyone on the boat had been screaming. "It was all a nightmare, he said. He thought that was it, that they were all dead."
"I got the first call [on Saturday morning] after the coastguard and police. The phone was passed to Pete and he was hysterical, freaking out."
While the boat was a wreck and Mr Bellingham had recently brought its insurance cover down by $30,000, the main thing was that nobody was killed, he said.
He was still establishing if the boat was equipped with a gas detector, but he said the gas bottle did have a vent from which air could escape out of the boat.
"I'm pretty sure there was [a gas detector] but I'm still doing some homework on that. Whether one was on board and it wasn't working, I don't know."
The men knew each other because they lived in the same area in Auckland and were both keen on fishing.
Mr Murray owned several panelbeating businesses and was described by Mr Bellingham as a "happy go lucky, sociable sort of guy" who loved his boats and fishing.
"He's a real generous sort of character, loves a beer. If anyone ever needs anything he's always there."
Beside Michael, Mr Murray and his wife Katrina had another son and several daughters. None of them was on the boat at the time.
Ms Sherwood's daughters were discharged from Waikato Hospital yesterday, but she and Michael, and Mr Murray, remain in ward 7.
Coromandel chief fire officer John Walker said the 30-foot (9.1m) catamaran was equipped with all the necessary gear and the family was obviously safety conscious.
Mr Walker wanted to recover the gas cylinder, which Mr Murray had thrown overboard.
"The whole boat was a bloody disaster zone, the explosion blew all the cupboards and doors off. The kids sleeping down below, they were bloody lucky to get out."
Mr Murray had suffered the worst burns because of his proximity to the flame and gas source when it blew, Mr Walker said. "It was an intense heat, all the extremities on their bodies got burnt - hands, hair, feet, faces."
