Skipper admits launch site misjudged

The skipper of a boat that flipped in heavy swells, claiming the life of a boy, admitted in the Tauranga District Court yesterday that, "in hindsight", he should have launched elsewhere.

At the close of the second day of a defended hearing, James Gordon Newlands, 47, an Otorohanga company director, told Judge Christopher Harding that the capsize which resulted in the death of Mt Maunganui boy Steven Robinson in January last year had changed the way he and a lot of other people thought about fishing.

Maritime New Zealand is prosecuting Newlands on two charges of operating a ship in a manner causing unnecessary danger or risk to persons or property.

The defendant choked back tears in describing the dramatic incident, during which his shoulder had been dislocated and his 6m boat wrecked.

But he grew tetchy during lengthy cross-examination by prosecutor Robert Stewart.

After occasionally reproving him for his responses, Judge Harding finally told Newlands he did not think "anybody in this room" suggested the accused had set out to do the wrong thing when he took three young teenagers - his son and two rugby mates - out on a gamefishing trip.

Under earlier questioning, the skipper had said that he thought, in hindsight, he should have gone back to a site near the Te Kaha Hotel where sea conditions when he visited that morning were better than at Maraetai Bay.

Judge Harding: "Do you now think too it would have been better to launch from Te Kaha?"

Defendant: "Today, knowing all the facts, yes."

The judge: "And what about checking that all the lifejackets were done up before heading over the reef?"

Defendant: "In hindsight, yes."

A video of Maraetai Bay filmed by an eyewitness at the time of the boat capsize was replayed to the court.

Newlands conceded that it showed Steven Robinson's lifejacket did not appear to be securely fastened. "But I still say I did the clips up." The hearing continues today.

- NZPA