A luxury boat run aground on a Bay of Plenty beach was yesterday facing another night of pummelling from high seas, after a day of failed rescue attempts.
Rope after rope snapped as diggers tried to pull the water-logged, 20-tonne boat loose from wet sand on Mount Maunganui.
The 16m launch, estimated to be worth $400,000, hit a rock early yesterday morning on its way home from Fiji.
Police sergeant Craig Madden said a "navigational error" had caused the skipper to miss Tauranga's harbour entrance, and hit a rock about 1km off the beach.
The boat was initially anchored far from shore, but water gushed in through a hole in its hull and it was brought in to within 100m of dry sand at low tide.
One more bad night for stuck launch
Several attempts to recover the stricken launch using ropes tied to a digger failed. Photo / Alan Gibson
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