KEY POINTS:
Northland storm victim Noel Kelly still has his car and the clothes on his back but nothing more, after he was dealt a double blow on Tuesday.
Minutes after he was rescued from the dream yacht which was his home, it was pounded to bits in the Tutukaka Harbour by huge seas and the "most horrendous, howling wind" gusting to nearly 200km/h.
Mr Kelly, 51, a manufacturing jeweller by trade, leapt into the water as his yacht was about to hit the rocks and was hauled aboard a Tutukaka Coastguard rescue boat. He took some dry clothes he had rapidly stuffed into a plastic bag.
An hour or so later as he rued the loss of his uninsured yacht, Susila, he put the change of clothes he had salvaged into a drier at the Tutukaka Marina.
When he went back to collect them they had been stolen.
"Someone had stolen my last set of clothes, how is that? I just couldn't believe it," an emotional Mr Kelly said today.
On top of that a lifetime collection of bits and pieces he had collected since he was five or six, and the rest of his possessions disappeared when his 12.5m ferro cement yacht was broken into thousands of pieces.
"My whole life was on the boat."
The hull is on the bottom of the Tutukaka Harbour and the rest of the yacht is scattered, mostly on the southern side of the harbour.
Much of the gear thrown onto the beach, including fishing and dive gear, jewellery and clothes, had been looted by people scouring the beach. He said if any of the looters had a conscience they would hand it in to the police or the coastguard.
Mr Kelly lived on the yacht and was setting up a workshop on board to make jewellery. He said today its loss had cost him close to $200,000.
After his only change of clothes was stolen all he possessed were the clothes on his back, his car and his cellphone.
He was living in an emergency home in Whangarei but said that would not last long.
The drama began on Tuesday morning when he put out a second anchor and started his engine to stop being pushed across Pacific Bay on the southern coast of the Tutukaka Harbour.
The waves were at least three metres high and the wind was gusting to nearly 200km/h.
"They held me for several hours but I couldn't get either anchor up because the wind was so strong.
"I had the motor going and it kept me off the rocks for a while but the wind got up too strong."
He said three hours later the yacht he had owned for a year was on the rocks. The next day there was nothing left of it.
The hull had disappeared and everything he owned was either on the bottom of the bay or strewn around the coast.
"I don't think there was anything bigger than my body."
He said the yacht was his home but his insurance had lapsed.
"I have absolutely nothing now but my car and the clothes I stand in."
He said he was bringing the yacht up to category one status so he could cruise overseas.
If he had been at sea the solid and well-built yacht could have withstood anything, he said.
At the height of the storm five metre waves were breaking at the Tutukaka Harbour entrance. In the normally placid Pacific Bay the waves were at least two metres high and the wind was gusting to well over 190km/h.
Mr Kelly said had he been able to lift his anchors he would have survived.
He was on board by himself and said had he left the helm to release the anchors the yacht would have hit the rocks.
Mr Kelly said he was not sure the enormity of his loss had fully sunk in.
"I have lost everything I own. I'm a manufacturing jeweller. I had set up a workshop on there. I have lost all my trade tools which I have collected over the last 33 years."
Mr Kelly said he was setting up his yacht so he "could work from home and go where ever I felt like.
"It was my life's dream. I finally got it and I had had it for only a year and it's gone. You can imagine how I feel -- devastated."
He said all yachts had a personality and after a year he was beginning to feel part of it.
He said the 30-year-old Warwick yacht had been around the Pacific a lot and was a very seaworthy and well-built yacht.
Mr Kelly said he had never relied on anyone else or asked anyone for help in his life.
That has changed.
"May be for the first time I will have to. It is the first time I have really needed help in my life and I am getting it and I really appreciate it."
He was now looking for a job and a home.
He was also looking for any of his possessions which had been picked up from the beach to be returned.
- NZPA
