Ketch with couple the same boat: witnesses

By Eugene Bingham

A man who saw a boat with a young couple huddled on board sailing towards Cook Strait believes it was the same ketch seen by Guy Wallace.

Edward Charles Walsh and his wife, Eyvonne, (crrct) told the Scott Watson double murder trial yesterday they saw a blue and white double-masted yacht with port holes on January 2 last year.

Shown a drawing of the ketch described by Mr Wallace, Mr Walsh said: "With some minor alterations to it, that is the vessel that went past us, without a doubt."

Mr Wallace, a former Furneaux Lodge water taxi driver, has given evidence of dropping Olivia Hope and Ben Smart at a ketch in the early hours of New Year's Day, 1998.

The Crown says there is no compelling evidence the ketch exists and that Mr Wallace in fact dropped the young couple at Watson's single-masted sloop, Blade.

However, Mr and Mrs Walsh, who live in Endeavour Inlet, told the High Court at Wellington yesterday they noticed a distinctive ketch off Furneaux Lodge during the celebrations, and again two days later.

Mrs Walsh said she was standing on the lodge jetty when she saw the boat anchored beyond the flotilla of boats crowding the bay that night.

She was drawn to it by elaborate ropework.

On January 2, she and her husband were on board their charter boat fishing with their son and about 20 of his friends when they saw it again off Cannibal Cove at the northern end of Queen Charlotte Sound.

Mr Walsh said he had passed the boat off Furneaux several times on New Year's Eve while he was ferrying passengers to the lodge.

He said he was sure the boat he saw off Cannibal Cove was the same boat.

"I saw the boat with a blue stripe, round port holes, ropes everywhere about 150m away heading towards us."

Mr Walsh said he noticed three people on board, including a "very blond woman" and a young man.

"I thought they must have been boyfriend and girlfriend because it seemed like two thirds of the cockpit was empty and they were jammed in one corner."

Another man was standing on the deck.

None of them waved back when they gestured towards them.

"The chap in the middle of the vessel to me seemed to be consciously aware of us at all times."

He watched the boat as it cruised past within 50m of their position, towards Cook Strait.

Mr Walsh said he had previously described the boat as a Chinese junk boat, or a boat from Captain Cook's day.

Quizzed by prosecutor Paul Davison, QC, Mr Walsh said that although he had also described it as a ketch, he had not seen two masts.

Mr Davison: How many masts do you recall seeing?

Mr Walsh: Physical masts? I don't recall seeing any mast but I do recall seeing the bracing that came right down over the sides forward and aft which indicated two masts.

By January 4, the couple were aware of a police inquiry into the disappearance of Olivia and Ben and decided to sit down and recall what they had seen.

Independently, each of them sketched the ketch they had seen.

The sketches were faxed to the police on January 7.

Mr Walsh admitted that his sketch did not include some of the features he had described.

"But that took exactly 30 seconds to draw and it was a very quick concept of what was there,"said Mr Walsh, who is now the Furneaux Lodge manager.

He was embarrassed something he had sketched out so quickly was now being scrutinised so publicly.

Under questioning from Mr Davison, Mr Walsh said he had been in contact with Mr Wallace in the early days of January.

Mr Wallace had come and stayed on his boat in Endeavour Inlet to escape the media, said Mr Walsh.

He had also tried, unsuccessfully, to contact Mr Wallace to discuss the case with him on another occasion "when it was only a disappearance."

Justice Heron asked Mr Walsh if he had discussed the case with Mr Wallace before he and Mrs Walsh drew their sketches.

He said they had not.