Father, daughter rescued after frantic calls for help

A woman screamed into her cellphone for help as the 6m boat she was on capsized and sank in the Hauraki Gulf. Photo / Brett Phibbs

A woman screamed into her cellphone for help as the 6m boat she and her father were on capsized and sank in the Hauraki Gulf on Sunday.

The woman made her first distress call on the boat's VHF radio before it became waterlogged and she switched to her cellphone.

In her panic she called 018 instead of 111 and got the Coastguard.

Coastguard duty officer Kat Andrews said the woman and her father wore yellow life jackets which made it easy to spot them in the choppy seas.

"She was holding her cellphone out of the water to talk to me. She was screaming to be heard. We could hear her quite well but she was screaming. She was panicking.

"She did really well to keep that cellphone dry and keep it operating while I was talking to her."

She said the woman was also disoriented and thought they were near Waiheke Island but were further west, near Motuihe Island.

The Westpac rescue helicopter was sent but the shipwrecked pair were found by a nearby boatie.

"His boat was absolutely loaded, but he managed to get the lady on board. The father was sitting on the hull of the submerged vessel."

He was lifted off by helicopter and taken to the rescue base at Mechanics Bay.

His daughter was taken by boat to shore and then to hospital where she was treated for hypothermia.

The boat was recovered and taken to Bucklands Beach, where a hole was discovered in the hull.

Kat Andrews said it was the second emergency in which boaties had given the wrong position. It was important to have good local knowledge of the area.

She said without life jackets the pair could easily have drowned.

- NZPA