KEY POINTS:
Searchers were out on Auckland's Waitemata Harbour today looking for a man who disappeared after a boating accident on Sunday, saying they were now looking for a body.
Yesterday, a 25-strong search team, which included the missing man's colleague who survived the tragedy, spent much of the day searching the area where Mike Innes Shaw, 49, disappeared.
Both men were in a 5m runabout which sank late on Sunday afternoon near Browns Island.
Police said they were both left floating in the water in their lifejackets and were talking to each other before Mr Shaw floated away and has not been seen again.
The survivor clambered ashore on Browns Island and was found on Monday morning and the search began.
Sergeant Craig Kennedy said the searchers had found no sign of either the runabout or Mr Shaw, from Ramarama, a country settlement 42km south of downtown Auckland.
"The search has ended for the day and it will be scaled down tomorrow," he said.
Mr Kennedy said searchers would today try to put a buoy in the water around where Mr Shaw floated away to gauge the direction he could have travelled.
"We've done the exercise several times in the past in the area, but currents and tides are never 100 per cent the same so it's worth seeing if we can discover anything."
There are also plans to use underwater surveillance technology used by commercial fishing vessels to look for the wreckage of the boat.
Mr Kennedy said the surviving boatie told police it was possible their vessel had a hole in its hull which they may not have noticed because of a false floor.
"He said it wasn't behaving normally under power, suggesting water may have come on," he said.
"In those situations it can be susceptible to problems when a wave comes over the boat and we understand that's what happened."
- NZPA
