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Auckland yachtsman Rewi Kemp says it was a miracle he survived when his boat struck rocks on Monday night off Norfolk Island.
On his return to New Zealand yesterday to an emotional reunion with his partner and family, the 62-year-old recounted his fear as he tried to avoid being crushed by his stricken yacht and his gratitude when searchers found him after 12 cold and painful hours trapped on an uninhabited island.
His partner, Janet Dougherty, described news of his survival as the best Christmas present ever.
Mr Kemp was making for Norfolk Island during a solo voyage from Fiji to New Zealand after an electrical fault cut communications.
The 11.2m Moonshadow of Leigh was being battered in a storm when it hit unexpected rocks at Nepean Island.
Flung into a boiling sea as his vessel bucked in breaking 4.2m waves, the current swept Mr Kemp into a rocky bay hemmed in by 30m-high cliffs.
"The waves were enormous and I was clinging to the cliff, trying not to be dragged in to the sea... It was a maelstrom.
"When she struck, I ran forward. The boat struck on the keel and held together.
"It made a peculiar motion and threw me off like a bucket about 30ft in the air and I landed 15ft in front of the bow.
"I couldn't pull myself back on the boat - the bow was riding up high to meet the waves. Then as I swam in this gut, I saw the front of the boat coming at me. It was threatening to squash me as flat as a pancake."
Mr Kemp spent the night shivering from the wind-driven spray and in pain, his feet wounded by sea-urchin barbs.
"I tried to climb out over the cliffs but there was no way out and I waited for the low tide to try to walk around the rocks."
As he prepared for a painful walk through uncharted territory - "I thought I was on Norfolk Island, not a separate island" - a Norfolk Island Government vessel came into the bay and saw him.
"Someone saw wreckage and worked it out that it had to come from Nepean Island."
Nepean Island is a 10ha reserve about 1km south of Norfolk and exposed to heavy seas and strong tidal rips.
Mr Kemp, a naval architect and inventor, was treated at Norfolk Hospital for broken bones in one foot and had sea-urchin spikes removed from the other foot.
"I'm not feeling so good about it because I've lost the boat. But as some cheerful Norfolk Island person said, 'At least you are alive and can build another one'."
Mr Kemp was uncertain about the extent of insurance cover for the $75,000 vessel, which he was buying from a Fiji-based friend.
Janet Dougherty said her partner had been expected to sail into Opua in the Bay of Islands on December 12. She went there and waited three days to welcome him before returning to their home in Mangere Bridge.
"I tried to keep positive but as the days went by I was getting really scared."
Family alerted the New Zealand National Rescue Co-ordination Centre, which asked the Norfolk Island authorities to keep a lookout.
"He rang me from Norfolk Hospital at lunchtime on Tuesday to tell me he was safe.
"Next time he won't be sailing without me or a single-sideband radio or a satellite phone.
"I'm just so relieved he is here. It's the best Christmas present I could have."
