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A 13m fishing boat beached by its crew north of the Bay of Islands is now being assessed for repair in a boatyard at Opua.
The Mana Rose was towed from Takou Bay, north of Kerikeri, by the Northland Regional Council work boat Waikare and several other vessels during a salvage operation supervised by an insurance assessor late on Saturday night.
The damaged fishing boat was towed south to the Bay of Islands and lifted onto the hard at a boatyard.
"It was very successful. Water had been pumped out of the boat and there were no oil spills of any kind," regional council harbourmaster Ian Niblock said yesterday.
The Mana Rose, understood to have been sailing from Tauranga to the Far North with three crew, began taking on water and sinking after hitting rocks near the Cavalli Island group off Matauri Bay in the early hours of Saturday.
The Rescue Co-ordination Centre said the vessel's skipper decided to try to beach the boat before it sank and successfully grounded it about 100m offshore, near the Takou River mouth in Takou Bay.
The crew went safely ashore unharmed in the boat's liferaft.
