Lessons learned

The importance of telling someone ashore what your plans are when you head out on the water was highlighted recently when our Sealegs, Hibiscus Rescue Two, was paged out to find a man who had gone out from Orewa for a couple of hours fishing in a 14 foot dinghy with no cellphone, no VHF radio, no torch, no navigation lights, only one oar and no other means of communication. He hadn’t put in a trip report with Coastguard, which may have provided further information. In his favour however, the man did have a lifejacket and a flare on board. When he failed to return after dark his wife eventually called the police, who then called Coastguard.

Information from the man’s wife indicated that he usually fishes at the poles off the entrance to the Orewa Estuary. Armed with only this clue, Hibiscus Rescue Two launched from Stanmore Bay at 11pm and headed straight there. It was a moonless, misty night with smooth sea conditions.

On the run over to the estuary entrance, crew picked up the smallest reflection off the man’s lifejacket in the beam of a torch, around 200m away (the night sight could not see him unless the torch was shining directly on him, as it was dark and misty).

When the Coastguard Hibiscus crew reached the man and his dinghy around 15 minutes later, they discovered that the boat’s outboard motor had failed, the anchor was up and it was being blown offshore by the wind less than a mile off Orewa beach. The man had tried calling out to children on the beach who shouted back but they didn’t get the message that his boat had broken down. He also tried yelling out to a passing kayaker for assistance but was not heard. After nightfall he had set off his flare but nobody reported seeing it.

When you set off flares, especially if you only have one and are not in immediate danger, it is best to make sure someone is onshore or th ere is a passing aircraft or boat in the vicinity that is likely to see it. This maximises your chances of being found.

Coastguard towed the boat into the Orewa Estuary boat ramp. It was extremely fortunate the weather stayed calm as had it turned for the worse, this man could have been in a serious situation, being swept out to sea with no means of alerting anyone to his plight – all for the want of some simple, cheap communications, a cellphone and a VHF radio.