Cowed boatie rescued in tree

By ANGELA GREGORY

A scared boatie stuck up a tree has been just one of a range of rescues to which the coastguard has been called during a season of holiday mayhem.

Five boats have sunk in Auckland waters, prompting a reminder from the Auckland Volunteer Coastguard about using common sense at sea.

The most bizarre of the incidents involved a punctured inflatable dinghy, nosey cows and a man up a tree.

Coastguard duty officer Jaron Phillips said a small inflatable dinghy launched at Kohimarama Beach in rough conditions drifted out of control after being punctured.

A coastguard vessel found the panicking boatie more than 5km away on Browns Island.

Mr Phillips said the man dialled 111 on his cellphone to report that he was shipwrecked and being attacked by cows on the island.

"He'd obtained the weather forecast from the TV, got confused between his west and east bearings, and then turned his phone off when he thought cows would find him up a tree he had climbed."

In other incidents, a 8m catamaran was salvaged from rocks after it sank off the Whangaparaoa Peninsula.

A 15m launch started taking water in the Rangitoto Channel, and a 5.5m runabout had to be towed to Okahu Bay after being disabled by electrical problems and a poorly performing pump.

A family were rescued after their runabout began sinking off Browns Bay.

Only 1m of the bow remained above the waterline when help arrived.

Four coastguard vessels spent an evening searching for a man wrongly reported to have been lost overboard at Waiheke Island.

In the past two days, another dozen incidents have prompted callouts.

The officer on duty yesterday, Dean Lawrence, said the number of callouts was up about a third on the same period a year ago.

Boaties were pushing their luck in dodgy conditions, he said.

"People seem intent on going places when they should have been more circumspect."

Seas had been moderate to rough in the Hauraki Gulf, making boating quite unpleasant in some areas.

Mr Lawrence also thought boat maintenance had been neglected.

"A lot of problems should have been picked up through annual maintenance."