An Auckland teenager spent 18 hours clinging to a liferaft off the coast of Brazil after her ship capsized.

A New Zealander was one of 64 people rescued from a Canadian sailing ship, filled with high school and university students, that sunk off the coast of Brazil.

Two people were rescued after leaping into the water from a burning launch off Mayor Island in the Bay of Plenty today.

Rescue services were flat-out with 25 callouts by 5pm yesterday.

The Princess Ashika was an old "rust bucket" and he had not revised a memorandum of agreement for purchasing the vessel, the man who was company secretary of the Shipping Corporation of Polynesia has told a Tongan royal commission.

One fisherman drowned and three others spent hours clinging to their boat after it capsized in the mouth of the Manukau Harbour.

The crew of a NZ trimaran harassing Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean had to be rescued after their boat was allegedly rammed and sunk by a Japanese ship, anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society says.

A fisherman whose boat sank in the middle of the night was so determined not to surrender it that he swam the waterlogged vessel nearly 1km to safety.