Police divers join search for 13-year-old

Police divers will join a search today for a 13-year-old boy missing after a weekend boating accident at Te Kaha, 70km northeast of Opotiki.

Steven Robinson of Mt Maunganui was going out for an afternoon's game fishing on Saturday with two friends and the father of one of them when their 6.2m aluminium boat flipped backwards in near-3m swells.

They were about 400m from shore and three made it back. Extensive land, sea and air searches have failed to find Steven, whose lifejacket was ripped from him in the heavy seas.

The hard-top fishing boat was recovered.

Constable Floyd Pratt of Te Kaha said the Otorohanga boat-owner, whom he would not name, knew Maraetai Bay (also known as Schoolhouse Bay) well. An experienced game fisherman, he had used the entrance more than 500 times.

On Saturday he might have misjudged a wave, said Mr Pratt. Other boats were going in and out about the same time.

"You just have to make a judgment call. It was one of those things that happen."'

There were quite a few onlookers and one local man went to the rescue in a kayak.

After the boatie was treated at Whakatane Hospital on Saturday for a fractured shoulder, he was back searching for Steven yesterday, together with family members and up to 100 Te Kaha residents.

Mr Pratt was one of the first to reach the scene of the capsize. In his own "brand new" fishing boat, he was enjoying a rare weekend off taking part in a fishing competition.

Radioed by his wife, the sole-charge policeman in the small coastal settlement came "racing in" from 6km away to start the search and alert the Coastguard and Rescue Co-ordination Centre.

Mr Pratt was also co-ordinator of a major search nearly a year ago at nearby Omaio Bay for two Whakatane surfers, Brandon Jarrett and Greg Boynton-Shaw.

Their lives were claimed by monstrous seas in the wake of tropical Cyclone Ivy.

Mr Pratt said that once again the coastal community had come out in force to help search and provide "ultimate support" to grieving families visiting the area.

And again a local marae - this time Tukaki at Te Kaha - had been opened up to the searchers.