The occupants of a 40-foot boat in distress off the coast of Māhia were safely transferred to a Coastguard boat amid three-meter swells and windy conditions on Tuesday night.
Video / Coastguard Hawke's Bay
A multi-agency response involving Maritime New Zealand’s Rescue Co-ordinationCentre (RCCNZ) and Coastguard began when the RCCNZ received a mayday call from the injured occupants of a vessel in distress about 9pm on Tuesday.
An occupant of the boat, who declined to be named for privacy reasons, said he and the two others on board were experienced seafarers.
They left Auckland on Sunday to head to Wellington in his mate’s launch on a delivery voyage.
“We were getting weather updates every half an hour from our colleagues on the ships, so we were well informed.”
He said they expected to get rough weather around East Cape and the launch handled it well despite falling off several waves, but they used more fuel than expected and had to call into Gisborne.
He said it was “dead calm, sunny” weather when they arrived in Gisborne and took on more than 1000 litres of diesel.
They headed out again, still receiving continual weather updates, when they got a call that Wellington had been hit by a squall and it was three hours away from them near Portland Island.
“At that stage, we had to get a bit of a wiggle on because it was still six hours out from Napier.”
He said the squall hit earlier than expected and it was like nothing he had seen in his long career.
“The water underneath, it was absolutely boiling.
“We fell off this wave, the wave just disappeared from under us, we were literally in mid-air and the 30-tonne boat slammed down into the water,” he said.
“It burst the windows. I was next to the windows and had my legs cut, the skipper had hit the ceiling and had slammed into his chair and hurt his back.”
With nowhere to go for shelter, it was at that point they sent out the mayday call.
VHF radio was patchy, but they were fortunate to be close enough to have cell coverage which was used by the RCCNZ to track them.
A distressed passenger on the boat prepares to attempt to jump across into the arms of Coastguard rescuers. Photo / Coastguard Hawke's Bay
After the boat was unable to drop its anchor, the crew was eventually transferred on to the rescue vessel.
The last of the trioto get off the boat, the man spoken to by Hawke’s Bay Today, made it over after Coastguard Hawke’s Bay rescuers made three attempts to get him.
“I literally just stepped off the boat, grabbed the handrail, stepped onto their boat and, like, 10 pairs of hands, the Coastguard guys all grabbed you at the same time and we were gone,” he said.
“I shook all their hands, I said to them they are all just legends.”
He said it was the first time he had ever been rescued off a boat and the first time he had “feared for my life” in his “very long career” at sea.
He said if it wasn’t for the training they had as professional seafarers, it could have been “a recovery rather than a rescue”.
“We were all very tired, most of us hadn’t slept for anywhere between 24 and 48 hours, we had very little to eat because of the sea so we were quite fatigued and it is not until you come off that adrenaline high that it sort of dawns on you how very close we were to dying.”
He will only have one week’s reprieve before he is back on the seas again for work on Wednesday next week, with a great story to tell his workmates.
“I’ve got a week to get my nerves back in check and get settled down a bit and reflect on what just happened.
“More than anything, although I wished it never happened, the learning from the experience I just had is invaluable to my career.”
The boat itself was left to drift to shore and landed around Opoutama Beach on the Māhia Peninsula at dawn, according to Māhia sole-charge officer Chad Prentice. Photo / Chad Prentice
The boat landed around Ōpoutama Beach near Māhia at dawn on Wednesday.
The rescued occupant said they aimed the vessel towards a sandy beach to reduce the impact on the environment and it went ashore with an estimated 740 litres of diesel on board and about 50 litres of oil in the engines.
“We did all we could to minimise the impact on the environment,” the occupant said.
James Pocock joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2021 and writes breaking news and features, with a focus on environment, local government and post-cyclone issues in the region. He has a keen interest in finding the bigger picture in research and making it more accessible to audiences. He lives in Napier. Email him at james.pocock@nzme.co.nz.
