Keanu Reriti, left, and Jason Braid, right, spent two hours in the water after their fishing boat capsized. Photos / 123RF, supplied
Keanu Reriti, left, and Jason Braid, right, spent two hours in the water after their fishing boat capsized. Photos / 123RF, supplied
Three crew of a fishing boat which overturned after a rogue wave hit survived for two hours in freezing water dressed only in their underwear before being rescued by photographers planning to take snaps of great white sharks nearby.
The commercial fishing boat Mary Ellen II had only been at sea for two hours and had just started pulling in blue cod when the 10 metre long vessel was hit by a rogue wave from behind and flipped upside down on Friday morning at 8.05.
Skipper Jason Braid has described the ordeal as "pretty bloody scary" and believes the self-inflating beacon installed on the boat last December saved their lives.
Braid was on the boat with deck hand Keanu Reriti, 23, and 18-year-old Oceania Tuuta who had gone along as a trainee when the boat was overturned and they were thrown into the ocean by a massive wave.
The trio, who all live on the Chatham Islands, scrambled towards the boat clinging onto the 2m section of the bow that was sticking out of the water. Reriti's four-month-old pup Lux was also on board and he held him close.
"We were hanging onto the bow of the boat. The bow of the boat was dangling upside down... It was a bit awkward there wasn't any time to get life jackets or anything like that."
The life jackets were trapped in the boat's cabin under the water, but Braid didn't think they would have been any help.
"If we had life jackets on we would have drowned because we would have been stuck under the boat."
Braid also tried to dive underwater to activate the beacon, but could not reach the bottom of the boat.
Keanu Reriti was a deck hand on board the Mary Ellen 2 when she was struck by a freak wave and sank. Photo / Supplied
Jason Braid aka Gutty Braid was skipper of the fishing boat which sunk after being struck by a rogue wave. Photo / Supplied
Instead the crew shed their wet weather gear which was weighing them down.
"There was a wind chill too - getting all your wet weather gears off. I was in shorts, the deck hand was in boxers and the girl was just in tights and a top."
The 47-year-old huddled with the two other crew to stay warm, but every time a swell or wave came they got dunked under, taking in the salt water.
"We were holding our breath."
Braid said he wouldn't let the youngsters think bad thoughts and instead kept telling them they would be rescued.
"We all knew each other pretty well. We told stories and joked with each other."
They had been bobbing up and down in the water and getting pushed under by the swells for an hour when they all started to feel cold and weary. It was an especially high tide due to the full moon, he said.
"She was pretty, pretty, pretty bloody scary," he said.
"I was praying and I'm not a praying man, but I was that day."
They kept clinging on and after two hours in the freezing ocean Braid spotted the Falcon II boat in the distance.
Reriti and Tuuta didn't believe him when he said it was coming for them.
"That they gave them the next bit of oomph."
Another 15 minutes passed before the boat reach them.
The crew did not know at that stage whether a float-free distress beacon installed on the boat in December had deployed automatically alerting local authorities they were in trouble.
Braid said a thought about the beacon had crossed his mind: "Do these f***ing things work".
The Rescue Coordination Centre NZ confirmed it received the distress beacon alert at 8.20am from Western Reef, 32km northwest of the Chatham Islands.
The coordination centre staff spoke with the boat's owner – the registered contact for the beacon – who was on land confirmed that three people were on board.
RCC then worked with Maritime NZ to broadcast a mayday distress message prompting two fishing boats to head to the scene.
Senior search and rescue officer Dave Wilson said the EPIRB distress beacon saved their lives and showed how important it was to have one on board.
Braid said they were rescued by a film crew of Falcon II who had been travelling from Waitangi Bay to the area to take photos of great white sharks.
The film crew had taken footage of six sharks swimming around the boat the day before they helped rescue the fisherman.
Braid said they couldn't have asked for a better rescue boat because there were also paramedics on-board who helped slowly warm them up with blankets and glucose drinks. They had hypothermia and cuts and bruises from being bashed against the boat.
The sodden crew were taken the two-hour trip to Chatham Islands main wharf in Waitangi Bay. The were checked over at the hospital before being discharged.
Two other fishing boats arrived shortly after Falcon II collecting up their items floating in the water. The crew lost 300kg of blue cod they had caught in the morning and the puppy Lux died from the water intake once they arrived on shore.
On Monday they were recovering, though shaken and feeling unbelievably lucky, Braid said. They had already been looking at replacement boats and he was eager to get back on the water.
