Weather halts filming of trawler wreckage

A planned dive to film the wreck of the Kotuku today has been called off due to bad weather, a Maritime New Zealand spokeswoman says.

Police divers were due to begin filming the wreckage of the fishing trawler which sank in the Foveaux Strait on Saturday, killing six people.

Rough weather stopped the operation yesterday and Maritime NZ spokesman Steve Corbett said the divers were planning to film the boat.

Investigators would use the film footage to help determine how the accident happened and to assess whether or not the vessel could be re-floated, Mr Corbett said.

However, a spokeswoman said this afternoon the dive would "probably not be this week".

"The weather's not that great down there," she said.

It was not possible to say when the dive could take place.

The boat would not be salvaged by Maritime New Zealand but would be the responsibility of Kotuku's owner.

The 17m vessel sank on the way back from a mutton bird-ing expedition to Kaihuka Island.

The death toll makes the trawler's sinking New Zealand's worst sea disaster in 23 years.

Meanwhile, the first of the funerals for the victims was being held this afternoon.

A service for Ian James Hayward, 52, was to be held at the Invercargill Working Men's Club at 1.30pm, followed by a burial at Bluff's Green Point cemetery at 4pm.

The funerals for Bluff man Leslie Christian Topi, known as Peter, 78, and his two nine-year-old grandsons, Shain Jack Topi-Tairi and Sailor Roy Trow-Topi, Peter's daughter and Sailor's mother, Tania Marie Topi, 41, and Clinton Allan Woods, 34 would take place on Saturday morning at the Bluff Town Hall.

Kotuku skipper John Edward Edminstin, 56, Peter's son and Shain's father Paul Maurice Topi, 46, and Peter's grandson and Tania's older son, Dylan James Topi, 16, were rescued from Women's Island on Saturday night.

Constable Tim Harwood, of Invercargill, said police were interviewing the survivors to assist the coroner's investigation.

- NZPA