Ketch owner details party night at inlet

By Alison Horwood

A ketch similar to the yacht on which Olivia Hope and Ben Smart were first thought to have disappeared was used for a family holiday in the Marlborough Sounds.

Peter Kennedy told the High Court at Wellington yesterday that he and seven other people, including his 15-year-old daughter and his wife, arrived at Endeavour Inlet on their ketch Alliance at 3.30 pm on New Year's Eve. No additional people stayed overnight, and when the ketch left at 9.30 am on New Year's Day no one else was on board.

Mr Kennedy, one of the three co-owners, said the ketch attracted a lot of attention because it was "quite different in its design."

He described his two-masted yacht as white with a blue and mauve stripe, and round portholes, also painted mauve. Built in 1983, it is 52ft long, and the steel hull is scow-like, or flat on the bottom and square on the sides.

Early in the investigation, police were hunting a blue-and-white ketch with round portholes after water-taxi driver Guy Wallace said he dropped the Blenheim friends on to it with a stranger.

But in her opening address in court last week, crown prosecutor Nicola Crutchley said: "The Crown contends there is no compelling evidence that such a yacht as has been described, which the police initially looked for, was ever in Endeavour Inlet near Furneaux Lodge in the position it would have had to have been in for it to be that boat Olivia Hope and Ben Smart got on to in the company of Scott Watson."

Watson's boat was described by the Crown as being to the left of the jetty, and rafted to others.

Mr Kennedy told the court that Alliance was anchored about 200m straight off the end of the jetty and not rafted to other boats.

During the trial, most of the boaties called by the Crown have recalled seeing a drawing of the two-masted yacht Mr Wallace described. None of them saw a matching boat in the Sounds, although some said Alliance was similar.

Yesterday, Mr Kennedy agreed that he had not seen a ketch matching the drawing.

Asking him to examine the drawing, Nicola Crutchley said: While at Furneaux Lodge did you see a boat that looked anything like the boat in the sketch?

Mr Kennedy: No.

Nicola Crutchley: And if you had done, would you have made a note of it?

Mr Kennedy: I would have done, because of the similar colouring and because there are not a lot of boats around with round portholes.

Mr Kennedy said his daughter and her friend went ashore for a shower when it was still light, and returned shortly afterwards. About 9.30 pm the group of eight went to the party at Furneaux, then returned about 11.30 to see in the New Year on Alliance. After celebrations, and his daughter and her friend "terrorising a few people with a spotlight," everyone was in bed by 3 am.

By 9.30 am Alliance began to drag anchor, so they left for Tawa Bay, then to Punga Cove, where they spent the next night. On January 2, they returned to Waikawa Bay in Picton, where Alliance is berthed.

Under cross-examination by defence lawyer Mike Antunovic, Mr Kennedy said Alliance was not at Endeavour Inlet on December 30.

Mr Antunovic: So anyone who thought they saw your ketch in Endeavour Inlet on the 30th was mistaken?

Mr Kennedy: Yes.

Later he said that the external lighting on the vessel included a floodlight on the rear mast, a light on the wheelhouse, a masthead light and navigation lights. During New Year's Eve, only the anchor light was on all night.

Justice Heron asked whether the masthead light was illuminating, or just indicted the location of the boat for approaching craft.

Mr Kennedy said it had no illuminating function.

Earlier in the day, another witness under cross-examination, Christchurch doctor John Boyd, told the court that there was little use for self-steering gear in the Sounds.

Mr Antunovic: So you may as well put it away for all the use it would be?

Dr Boyd: Yes, I would agree.

The Crown contends that Watson tried to change the appearance of his yacht by removing the windvane part of the steering mechanism and hiding it in the cockpit.