Navy, Air Force work to rescue skipper of stricken yacht in Cook Strait
A yachtie “thought it was all over” before a touch-and-go rescue in the Cook Strait last night in “horrendous” conditions, just hours after his relative was medically evacuated off the same boat.
A navy commander has described how their experienced crew feared they might not be able to find the stricken yacht in the poor weather, as the skipper, a man in his 60s, began sounding “beat up” over maritime radio, saying his vessel was taking on water.
If it were not for the intervention of both the Royal New Zealand Navy and Air Force, the disastrous trip could have had a far worse ending, HMNZS Taupo’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Toby Mara, said.
The saga began on Wednesday evening when a mayday call was put out about an unwell person on the 11m yacht the Boxing Kangaroo, which was about seven nautical miles (13km) southeast of Cape Palliser in Wairarapa.
The Wellington Volunteer Coastguard launched its Spirit of Wellington rescue boat about 8.30pm after being tasked by police.
“This was a big job for our crew, who returned safely home, handed the rescued sailor over to Wellington Free Ambulance paramedics and washed the boat down at 4am,” the coastguard said on social media.
“The eight-hour trip, covering roughly 82 nautical miles all up, demonstrates the commitment our volunteers have to saving lives at sea and our capacity to do so.”
It is understood the evacuated person was a relative of the skipper.
Mara said the HMNZS Taupo became involved some time after this evacuation, with a second mayday call coming in on Thursday afternoon when the navy ship happened to be in the area.
The skipper had assured Coastguard he was able to sail the yacht back to Wellington on his own, but calamity struck when the vessel developed a fuel leak. He eventually ran out of diesel and was relying on batteries, which also ran out at some point.
The skipper was left without any navigation equipment except a compass, in rapidly worsening weather.
His mayday call explained he did not know where he was, so the HMNZS Taupo began searching with the help of other agencies. In the meantime, the skipper had fallen over a few times and injured himself while trying to manage the yacht.
The navy ship searched around Cape Palliser and along the South Coast, finding no sign of the boat.
It was “pretty horrendous conditions” with white water crashing over the bridge of the navy ship as they rushed to find the man.
“We had to really monitor our speed so that we didn’t take any damage ourselves.”
As night fell, they still didn’t know where the man was, and it was possible he was misidentifying landmarks over the radio, “as you would be in a small yacht in two-metre seas”.
Shortly before 9pm, the ship was able to pick the yacht up on their VHF radio, and knew he was within about 10-15 nautical miles of them. Pinpointing his exact location was not so simple, though.
About an hour later, the Royal New Zealand Air Force’s P-8A Poseidon aircraft arrived on the scene, having heard the navy ship’s communications. Within about 10 minutes, they were able to find the skipper, and stayed circling overhead while the HMNZS Taupo travelled 40 minutes to the right location.
Mara said the Cook Strait was “pretty notorious” for its conditions, and that night was “probably a medium show”.
“It certainly wasn’t anything I would want to be in in a vessel smaller than I am now,” he said. The navy deployed a small rigid inflatable boat, which their expert crew were able to bring alongside the yacht, assisting the skipper in and taking him back to the ship for medical assessment.
The yacht “looked pretty beat up, to say the least” and the crew decided it was unsafe to tow it, so they put out a maritime warning for others on the water to avoid where it was likely to be drifting.
Mara sat down with the man about 1am.
“He was cold, wet, and a bit over it, I think ... He was definitely a little bit out of it but talking to him he was in fairly high spirits, probably just relieved he had been found ... He thought it was all over.”
The navy had been searching for him for “such a long time” and had been putting flares up and using search lights, but the skipper had been unable to see any of it.
“He was losing a lot of hope.”
Mara said the chances were “possibly high” the man might not have been rescued had the Defence Force not been able to step in, given the conditions in the water. If the Air Force had not been able to help locating him, “we would have been lucky to find him”.
While Mara felt they would have found the man eventually, “it would have taken an extra 12 hours and surviving till daylight.”
The yacht was found 23 nautical miles south of Cape Palliser and about the same distance east of Cape Campbell, which he said was nearly out of the Cook Strait altogether.
Mara said there was a “mixture of emotions” surrounding the rescue, which they had entered into feeling “fairly confident”. This confidence soon turned into “bugger, we might not be able to find him” and thoughts of “this is getting pretty severe and he’s sounding pretty beat up on the radio”.
After he was pinpointed, it was “charge full speed ahead and go get him.”
He wanted to praise his team, who were able to get the skipper safely onto the HMNZS Taupo, as well as those who monitored and cared for the man on board overnight.
“Having such highly-trained sailors on board has really benefited him.”
The navy is about to drop the man to police in Napier, who will take him to hospital for assessment.
Melissa Nightingale is a Wellington-based reporter who covers crime, justice, and news in the capital. She joined the Herald in 2016 and has worked as a journalist for 12 years.