Waitangi Yacht Club teens to the rescue as cyclone blows boatie upriver without an oar

The teenage rescuers approach a boatie who’d ended up stranded in mangroves in Waitangi River. Photo / Jacob Fewtrell

Three teenagers have rescued a man from Waitangi River as Cyclone Gabrielle pounded the Bay of Islands with gale-force winds and massive swells.

The drama began about 10.45am on Sunday as Thomas Fewtrell, 18, was checking the Bay of Islands Yacht Club base on the Waitangi waterfront to make sure it was weathering the storm.

“A lady came in and said her husband was up the river in a dinghy. One of his rowlocks had broken and he was being blown up the river towards Haruru Falls.”

Fewtrell, who’s a jet boat driver and the club’s boats manager, was told the man had bought the dinghy just an hour earlier and was planning to check his boat in the Waitangi Estuary.

With the water too wild by the yacht club, Thomas Fewtrell tows the chase boat to a nearby boat ramp. Photo / Jacob Fewtrell

He enlisted the help of his twin brother, Jacob Fewtrell, and another club member, 16-year-old Carter Stringer, and got ready to launch the club’s inflatable chase boat.

The water was too rough by the clubrooms so he used a tractor to bring the rescue boat to the public boat ramp on the other side of Waitangi Bridge.

The teens didn’t know where the man was so they just started heading upriver. Fortunately, he was wearing a high-vis raincoat which him easy to spot about 400m upriver.

When they reached him he was standing in chest-deep water among mangroves, holding his dinghy with one hand and his cellphone — which he’d used to alert his wife — above his head with the other.

“He seemed pretty knackered. Me and Jacob grabbed him by the arms and lifted him in.”

The Waitangi Yacht Club crew approach the stranded boatie. Photo / Jacob Fewtrell

The trio took the man and his dinghy back to Waitangi. His grateful wife and police, who’d been alerted by a member of the public who’d seen the boatie blown up the river, were waiting at the boat ramp.

Fewtrell said he was pleased to be able to use the club’s resources to help someone in need. He’d towed broken-down boats before but Sunday was his first real rescue.

“It was a good feeling,” he said.

Police wait to meet the rescuers as they return to Waitangi. Photo / Jacob Fewtrell

The man and his dinghy ended up in mangroves about 400m upriver. Photo / Derek Gerritsen