April 29, 2025 • 55 mins
The tragic loss of three fishermen off the Gisborne coast last year sent shockwaves through New Zealand's fishing community. What began as a promising day with a forecast of just five knots of wind quickly deteriorated into a nightmare scenario of 20-knot winds and dangerous sea conditions.
Roger Faber, president of the Gisborne-Tatapouri Fishing Club, takes us through that fateful day when experienced club members Elwood Higgins, Taina Sinoti, and Damien McPherson headed offshore to chase bluefin tuna. Despite their experience, the rapidly deteriorating weather caught them in its grip, leading to one of New Zealand sport fishing's darkest chapters.
We hear from Henry Van Teel, Hawke's Bay Coast Guard skipper, who provides a gripping account of the rescue attempt amid six-metre swells and 50-knot winds. His team's agonising decision to turn back—despite knowing men were in the water—highlights the brutal risk calculations that sometimes must be made at sea. "There's no point hammering the boat and crew arriving on scene if you can't do anything," Van Teel explains, sharing the Coast Guard's disciplined approach to safety that recreational boaties can learn from.
The ripple effects of this tragedy transformed fishing practices nationwide. Hayden Johnson of the Whakatane Sport Fishing Club describes how his members rallied to raise funds for affected families while implementing mandatory safety equipment requirements. Clubs across New Zealand revisited their safety protocols, with increased emphasis on buddy boating, better weather forecasts, and the critical importance of EPIRBs and Personal Locator Beacons.
From improved communication systems to fundamental shifts in how fishers approach risk assessment, this powerful episode offers essential lessons for anyone who ventures offshore. As Van Teel poignantly states, "The most important piece of equipment is between your ears." Listen, learn, and ensure you come home safely from your next fishing adventure.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome back to the NZSFC Pod and Reel podcast.
I'm Mike Plant from the NewZealand Sport Fishing Council.
This week we're revisiting atragedy that occurred last year
off the coast of Gisborne, whenthree men lost their lives while
fishing for bluefin tuna.
We'll hear from Henry Van Teel,who was the skipper of the
Hawke's Bay Coast Guard boatthat ventured out to rescue
(00:37):
these men.
We'll also hear from thepresident of the Whakatane Sport
Fishing Club and how itimpacted their team on the
ground.
But first we're joined by RogerFaber, the president of the
Gisborne Tatapuri Fishing Club.
Roger, before we revisit whathappened last year, this year
has actually been an amazingfishing season for all your
(00:57):
anglers.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yeah, it's been a great season which started early
in December, which was awesometo see, with some real nice big
iron.
I think there were half a dozenover 100 kilos caught and then
obviously yellowfin turned upwith a similar sort of time,
were amongst them and marlinslightly later.
I think the first marlin wascaught before Christmas, but a
little bit later than the bigeye and then after Christmas,
(01:21):
new Year flowed on and yeah, allin all it'd probably be one of
our best seasons ever,definitely best season I can
ever remember for Yellowfin inthe sort of 40-something years
I've been involved with gamefishing out here Amazing.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
And you know, gisborne's really got some
challenging conditions to getout, and when you get those
weather windows, the guys wantto do it.
And I guess that kind of leadsus into what we're chatting
about today, with what happenedlast year.
And the weather window lookedpretty good, didn't it?
To start with?
For you guys it was five knots,and can you tell me a bit about
what the decision was to gofishing on that Monday?
(02:00):
Was it a fishing comp?
What was going on?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah on, yeah, okay.
So basically we had had theweekend, um, there had been
quite a number of boats out thathad done very, very well on the
bluefin tuna, in a pacific areawhich is called the southern
dog's leg, which is about 30miles sort of south of gisborne,
directly off mahir peninsula umso some good fish had been
(02:22):
caught, the talk was around andeverything.
Ourselves had looked at theforecast and saw a weather
window.
Five knots northerly wasforecast.
There was a little bit of swell, there was sort of two and a
half meters swell, but thought,hey, with that sort of five
knots it shouldn't be a problem,especially trolling et cetera.
So four of us decided let's go.
So 7am in the the morning webasically left the harbour.
(02:46):
I got a Caribbean 40 launch andwe headed down to that
particular area, unbeknown to usat the time.
We did run into one of theother boats, or come across I
shouldn't say run into, comeacross one of the other boats
that had a similar plan and thatwas a guy called Carl Bennett
on his boat for real.
(03:08):
We talked to him on the VHFradio, basically talked about
our plan and what we were goingto do for the day and sort of
continued on.
Now a big thing we noticed aswe got sort of further on the
forecast the breeze wasdefinitely building and was up
well over the five knotsforecast and as we got out
(03:29):
further and further got up toprobably around about 20 knots
from the north, which, yeah, itwas sort of a little bit ugly on
top of that sort of sizenortherly swell and some of the
biggest sets were breaking asthey sort of went along.
We were in our boat, evenpretty uncomfortable about those
(03:50):
conditions and we didn't evenput our outriggers out, we just
put a couple of lures out andtrolled slowly with the sea,
hoping that the wind would dropoff and the day would turn into
pretty much what was forecast.
And yeah, we just carried onlike that for for a little while
and, um, yeah, nothing reallychanged.
(04:11):
Um, at the time carl in his boathad talked to elwood higgins,
who's another local guy who haddecided to go out.
He went left a little bit laterthan us.
His plan was to go to an areadirectly out of gisborne and
then head down to where we werefishing and he talked on the vhf
to him and basically we knewthe three boats were out there
(04:34):
and we basically just carried ondoing our own thing.
About 9 am we had a boat goacross our bow, running side on
to the swells.
It blew a hull.
It wasn't a boat that Irecognized and actually my crew
said who's that?
And I said, oh well, it's not,uh, earlwood and it's not carl,
(04:56):
it must be a boat out from mahiand we basically just left it at
that and um carried on.
Wasn't till later on, and verymuch later on and well and truly
when we were back on shore,that we found out that that was
actually Earl Woods.
He actually had two boatsunbeknown to me, both called
Billy Boy.
One was a five and a half meterpontoon which I was aware of,
(05:19):
and then he had this WestCoaster, which was a seven to
eight meter west coaster, andthat was a boat that actually
went across our bow.
At the time we carried on, justas I say, idling didn't drop off
and we weren't comfortable withit.
We had discussions about whatwe were going to do.
It didn't seem to be droppingaway and it was, uh, probably
(05:41):
about 11 am.
Carl Bennett gave me a call onthe VHF and said, hey, this is
not nice at all, it's prettyugly, we're going to pull the
pin, go back in.
He's an ex-commercial longliner.
He also worked for EastlandPort on their boats for a time.
We'd already pretty much hadthat discussion and made the
same decision that hey, thisisn't nice, let's turn and start
(06:04):
heading for home, whichbasically was into the sea to a
degree.
I tried to call Elwood at thatstage and just see what his
plans were and didn't get anyreply.
I wondered whether he'd alreadydecided to go in or whether
he'd even come out any furtherand he'd turned back earlier, et
cetera, et cetera.
But we slowly made our way home.
(06:26):
We couldn't do a lot of pace.
When we got inside the 100meter line the sea did improve.
That wind dropped off quiteconsiderably and we were able to
make better time, but we justbasically moved and kept heading
back towards the port.
Carl had his son on board whoactually did work at the
(06:47):
Eastland port and he was able toget onto the cameras at the
boat ramp car park and theyactually called me up and said
there was a trailer and a ute inthe car park and they sort of
were a little bit concerned forElwood and what had happened and
whether it was him or wasn'this vehicle or what we didn't
(07:08):
know.
And we did try and contact himon cell phone, which we didn't
have any luck with, but at thatstage we sort of weren't too
sure what was happening etc.
So we just kept our way home.
At about 1pm I got back into theharbor.
(07:29):
I was ahead of carl andimmediately went down to the
boat ramp to check out thevehicle.
Now, the vehicle wasn't carl'svehicle.
The trailer on the back of itwas bigger than the pontoon boat
that I knew of the billy boythat he had, and I wasn't sure
whose it was or what they weredoing.
Being a northerly, the baypoverty bay was actually quite
(07:52):
flat and quite nice in therebecause it's quite sheltered.
So, wondered whether it wassomeone out there, I stayed
around down that area, tried tomake phone calls to some
Earlwood's best mates to see ifthey knew where he was or what
was going on, who was out withhim, et cetera, et cetera, and a
little bit of time did pass,and that's probably something I
(08:13):
still regret to this day that wedidn't call Coast Guard or the
police earlier and we probablywasted an hour or so just trying
to get in contact to get moreinformation about whose vehicle
this was, because it wasn'tearlwood's ute.
And uh, you know, and turned outthat it was actually one
earlwood's cruise damienmcpherson's ute that was on, was
(08:37):
there?
Um, but we didn't find that outto considerably time later carl
was again in contact with usand he was very, very concerned
as we were getting at that stage.
He had rung Coast Guard one ofthe crew members or skippers on
Coast Guard and informed him ofwhat was going on and that we
were concerned.
And basically that was when thesearch was sort of started or
(09:01):
the police started to coordinategetting Coast Guard together
and Coast Guard were down theregetting organized and on standby
.
Eastern Rescue Helicopter wasalso notified and put on standby
.
Things sort of progressed fromthere.
The police came down and saw us, talked to us and got as much
information.
I talked to the RescueHelicopter and Coast Guard about
(09:24):
what we knew at that stageabout where these guys were,
what they were doing.
It seemed like a long time butit may not have been a lot of
time.
But once they coordinated thesearch they started to head out
to see what they could do.
Probably that's a bit when wewere listening on VHF radio to
Coast Guard talking to them onthe phone and basically they
(09:51):
started heading out and it wasjust by that stage got worse and
worse and worse.
It was too rough for them toactually get totally out to
where we'd last seen the guysand the rescue helicopter was
sort of in a similar situation.
They did manage to get out buthad to turn back before they got
to the search area.
As far as I am aware, andbasically it was just, yeah,
(10:12):
being winter, it was dark, bro,just after five o'clock.
So they only really got acouple of hours in searching
before it was too dark and thesearch for the day had to be
called off.
We we actually had a committeemeeting that night and I stayed
down the club all day.
I basically didn't go anywhere.
The family by that time hadcome down to the boat ramp.
(10:33):
They were obviously waiting tohopefully hear some good news.
So they were around the boatramp at a committee meeting.
We did get requests from one ofthe family members to go out and
search.
This was after Coast Guard hadcome in and said it was too
rough.
I wasn't even in my boat,wasn't willing to go about and
(10:53):
risk extra lives.
I said if Coast Guard can't dotheir thing in those conditions
we won't be able to do anythingand searching at night would be
basically impossible.
But yes, media did get in touchwith me and basically told them
what we could and went live onair on the one news and the
(11:13):
breakfast show on TV3 that itwas the next morning, just to
let people know what was goingon, and we were all keeping our
fingers crossed that somethingpositive was going to happen.
Iroquois was put up, the AirForce Iroquois was put up to
search for them and basically,yeah, it was really just a
waiting game.
Probably one of the hardestthings was sitting on shore in a
(11:35):
harbour full of boats, whereevery boat in that harbour
probably would have been outsearching if conditions would
have allowed it.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah, and then there was a glimmer of hope, because
it was known that this was it acargo ship that was going past,
spotted the men and this startedmaking the news that they had
been spotted alive in the ocean.
But the ship was too big tostop or turn around and they
threw some rescue gear.
But that was pretty much.
You know.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
It was that little glimmer of hope that everyone
was hanging on to finally camethrough yeah, that was probably
early afternoon the next day, soyou know, probably 30 hours
after the incident or whateverdid happen to them actually took
place.
It was a I think it was acontainer ship and they went
(12:22):
past.
We were listening, listening onVHF, to Coast Guard or Maritime
Rescue, I think it was at thatstage.
We're on there talking to them.
They said they saw two men inthe water waving their arms to
them.
Now, looking at the conditionsat the time, it was gone round
to southerly and it was 35, 40knots and a huge sea.
(12:43):
Under that swell those menwould have been tossed around
all over the place.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
These guys?
They weren't amateur fishermen,they had done plenty of fishing
.
They were club members, of yourclub.
One was a referee, so they werefit guys, weren't they?
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yes, yep, All very fit young guys with young
families, which is one of theworst parts about it all.
They did a lot of fishing.
They were members of the club.
The club actually had twofishing contests running at the
time.
We had a bluefin tunasweepstake running and we also
had what we call our wintercontest running, which had
(13:20):
prizes for bluefin in it andalso prizes for other species,
which had prizes for bluefin init and also prizes for other
species.
Coincidentally, none of thesethree guys had entered either of
those contests.
They had basically just decidedthat the yellowfin were running
, there was a weather window toget out there and they decided
to go for a pleasure fish thatparticular day Henry Vantel
(13:40):
joins us.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
He is the president and skipper of Coast Guard
Hawke's Bay.
16 years he's been there, andpreviously was in Wellington for
six or seven years.
So that's over two decades ofexperience.
Henry, when were you made awareof this?
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Before we get too far into it, mike, I just want to
recognise that Elwood, tana andDamien they lost their lives and
you know our condolences andthoughts are with the whānau.
So you know, I think when wetalk this through I certainly
remember that there are threepeople that lost their lives
over this.
I personally became aware of itabout four o'clock, believe it
(14:18):
or not, on Monday afternoon andit was a pure coincidence.
So the police officer that ledthe initial search is actually a
Hawke's Bay-based policeofficer and he's part of the
Hawke's Bay SAR squad.
So I knew him pretty well andwe've worked through a number of
(14:41):
other marine searches in thepast.
So he just rang and said heylook, henry, this is going down.
I'm just looking for somebodyexternal just to sort of give
him a little bit of support.
So it was clearly outside ofour area.
So, as I understood, it was onthe east coast of Mahia and we
certainly go up, if you like, tothe bottom of Mahia, portland
(15:04):
Island sort of thing.
But from there on upwards itbecomes a Gizzy job, simply
because Gizzy can get there muchmore quickly than we can.
So I just had a chat with Alexabout what was going down and
just sort of gave him somethoughts and stuff like that.
We were quite clear at thatstage we were not involved
unless it got really big andthey requested our assistance.
(15:26):
But it was clearly seen and Iknow that Gizzy Aaron from Gizzy
got on the water pretty quicklyand then the Gizzy helicopter
went there and did a search.
I wasn't involved very closelybut I was aware that Westerner
went out as well, that there'dbeen some offers of assistance
and stuff like that.
So that's what we knew onMonday night.
And I also knew that Westernerwent out as well, that there'd
been some offers of assistanceand stuff like that.
So that's what we knew onMonday night.
(15:47):
And I also knew that the policehad handed it over to RCCNZ.
And that's simply for people'sinformation.
Is Roman knows it's about 18nautical miles offshore, so it's
beyond the 12-mile limit.
That's the normal dividing linefor RCCNZ and police.
So I was aware that it had goneto RCCNZ and I was aware that
(16:08):
there'd been a reach out to theAir Force to get a Poseidon and
to do a search.
So that was Monday night.
So we were aware of it, we wereaware that people were doing
stuff, but at that stage we weredirectly involved.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
And so the search was mounted on Monday, but it was
somewhat fruitless, because theconditions just got worse and
hampered the emergency services.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Yeah, and look, I don't think and this is
particularly for your listenersand we can talk about it a
little bit further on is thatthe reality.
Like, if we're searching forwhat we call person in the water
and it sounds terrible becauseyou depersonalize it, but it's
important to sort of like tryand just do the process, putting
the knight to one side.
Think about you're looking forsomething the size of a
(16:53):
basketball and really, in thoseconditions, probably what we
call sweep width, that's theside, either side of the boat,
probably a maximum of 100 meters, so 50 meters and 50 meters
either side of the boat, andthat a maximum of 100 metres, so
50 metres and 50 metres eitherside of the boat, and that's
what you can search and, if youlike, that's the area that we
would sweep and then we wouldcome down and do another leg and
stuff like that.
(17:13):
So it is really really quitesmall relative to the size of
the sea.
But, as you're saying, mike,the conditions just deteriorated
that night.
It was cool.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yeah, it was cooled off until first light the next
Tuesday, and then there was somehope.
Two of the crew were spottedalive in the water by the crew
of the African Tiger containership.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Yeah.
So I was aware of the Poseidonthat night and in the morning I
was aware that they'd done aradar search and a thermal
search and found obviously foundnothing.
I got phoned just before middayat 11.51.
The CNC rang us and said heylook, their drift model showed
(17:57):
that there's a potential for theboat, if it was on the surface,
to have actually come intoHawke Bay and would we be
willing to carry out a search?
At that stage they gave me anarea of about 800 square
nautical miles and I said look,no, basically, and the reason
for that was the conditions wererough but manageable from our
(18:18):
point of view.
But the reality is, when you'researching that big an area,
aerial asset is what you want.
It's much faster than us and,to give you an idea, researching
for a boat in those conditionswe'd have a sweet width of, if
you're really lucky, half anautical mile call it 1,000
metres and you're dealing with800 square nautical miles.
(18:38):
It would be sheer luck that youfound anything and no real
starting points.
So I said look, but if you seesomething, something we will
give it a go and try and recoverit so I guess it's quite
remarkable the crew on thiscontainer ship.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
We're actually just able to see these men in the
water as well.
Like what are the chances ofthat?
Speaker 3 (18:58):
it's like if they had left I don't know what time
they left Napier, but they hadleft Napier and were transiting
through.
What their advantage is is that, instead of being, say, on our
boat CK, you're probably youreyesight two metres above sea
level.
On a log carrier you're talkingabout 50 or 60 metres, so
you're looking down rather thantrying to look across, if people
(19:21):
can get that picture.
But you're exactly right, itwas just sheer luck.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Yeah, looking at the report, it was saying a
six-metre swell and 50-knotwinds and low visibility.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Yeah, there were showers coming through and stuff
and the fact that they could,so obviously they saw them and
then they had to slow and comeback, so they lost them but then
found them again.
So I mean it was justremarkable that they were able
to do that.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
To be honest, it was just that ship I saw was 180
metres long, so manoeuvring inthose conditions is so dangerous
as well for that ship.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
And in fact they sustained some damage.
I don't know what damage theysustained, but my understanding
is, when they finally left, theysaid look, we've actually
sustained some damage and we'vegot to go.
So that was call it.
Say midday-ish that theycontacted me.
And then, yeah, 1340, so 20 to2, a CCNZ rang us and told them
(20:18):
that two persons in the waterhad been spotted off Portland
Island.
And my first thought was youhave got, you know really?
So, look, I had already rungcrew because of the earlier
approach, so we had handpicked acrew to go if something turned
up.
So I rang the crew and said hey, look, this is a situation I
(20:39):
think it's doable from our pointof view.
If you're happy, you can come,and so we put a crew together.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
How do you make that call between wanting to go out
and do your job and also keepinga bit of mind for your own
family, your crew's family,those you're putting at risk?
Speaker 3 (21:03):
That's the hard part.
I remember vividly my firstskipper, morris Guppy, when I
was down in Wellington andMorris was really strong, he
said look, if you look, there'sno point in hammering the boat
and the crew arriving on sceneand you can't do anything.
It sounds brutal, but yourfirst priority is look after
your crew.
If you look after your crewwhen you get on scene, you can
do something.
But if you don't look afteryourselves, you're not going to
(21:25):
be able to do the job.
And we religiously on this job,every half an hour we don't
stop the boat.
What's the weather gettingbetter or worse?
How's the crew going?
What's the boat doing?
What's our fuel burn?
What fuel have we used?
It's kind of like you take astop, take every half an hour.
If it's good to go, you carryon, if it's not good to go, you
(21:46):
make another call.
And so those are my things andat the end of the day I take
really seriously that I've got amoral obligation to my crew to
bring them back.
And that's what we did on thisjob is as soon as we left.
So we gassed up, obviously,made sure we had every litre of
diesel on the boat that we couldget.
(22:07):
A 12-metre boat, 960 horsepower.
So we've got twin 480s drivingHamilton jets.
We cruise at 28 knots in notquite any conditions, but
regularly 28 knots is our cruisespeed.
The best we could do was about12 or 15 knots and that was
(22:28):
directly towards where the guyshad last been seen.
So we actually it was almostlike a yacht we tacked, so we
actually put the weather on ourstarboard quarter forward,
quarter, just so we managed toget up to about 15 or 16 knots
and then had to come back in andsort of make our way that way,
(22:50):
but religiously, every half hour.
How's everything going?
This is going, this is going,that's going, yep.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
While Henry and the crew of Hawke's Bay Coast Guard
were assessing the conditionsfurther up the coast, the
Whakatane Sport Fishing Club wasquite a hive of activity.
President of Whakatane SportFishing Club, Hayden Johnson,
joins us.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
We were preparing for our annual bluefin tuna fishing
tournament at the time, and sowe were quite aware of what was
happening around the country andkeeping an eye out on where the
fishing was happening and whatwe were likely to see.
We were also aware of some ofthe boats that were coming from
that area that were going to becoming to fish our tournament.
So, yeah, we were keeping aneye out, seeing what was
happening.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
And when this incident happened.
What was it like at theWhakatane Club when it happened?
How did you guys react and whatwas happening?
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Losing any fellow fishers going missing is
horrible for all of us, and sothere was a lot of concern and a
lot of people talking about it,and it brings up a lot of
conversations about associatedrisks with our type of fishing
sport fishing that we do as well.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
For sure.
So I've heard some stories fromother people that they're
actually listening to the CoastGuard channel, where they could
hear it, or they were watchingthe flight radar when the rescue
was happening.
Were any of your club membersor yourself doing that?
Speaker 4 (24:09):
Absolutely.
This modern technology you'vebeen able to see what's
happening with a rescue is quiteoutstanding, and been able to
see the ship tracker, the flightradar, seeing where the rescue
helicopters are going, the fixedwings are going.
Obviously, we weren't able tobe listening in on the side of
the coast, but that technologywas outstanding to watch.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Back to Henry Van Teel and the crew of the Coast
Guard Hawke's Bay.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
It was getting dark.
I think we were within 20 or 30minutes of sunset.
We'd been copying the radiotransmissions and so we knew
that African tiger had left thescene.
And so all of a sudden, therewas a couple of factors that was
, some extra factors to weigh in, so we knew where the guys had
been seen at 1.30 or 13.30.
(24:53):
And we also had a lat long forwhere they were at 15.30, about
two hours later.
And so I plotted those on ourGPS and I had Alex who was on
helm, and I said Alex, that'syour new go-to Head, straight
for that.
And the best we could do was, Imean, the conditions were
getting, I was comfortable, Imean you know it was rough, but
I didn't feel at all concerned,and the best speed we could do
(25:18):
was eight knots.
So that gives you a sense ofwhat had happened.
The wind at that stage was 30to 40.
It was an honest three-meterswell with the odd five-meter
coming through, and then ofcourse there's the wind waves
sitting on top of that.
So the best we could do iseight knots.
(25:41):
So I could calculate.
The best we were going tomanage was we'd be on scene by
eight o'clock at night and theoriginal position was about
eight miles more or less southof Portland.
Obviously, the next positionwas a lot closer to Portland,
slash Mahia.
At eight o'clock they wouldhave been pretty close to the
coast and obviously you knowreefs, rocks working in there at
(26:03):
nightfall, at nighttime, and weknew the waves were bigger down
there and five or six meters.
It was just too dangerous.
It was like no, this is.
And so what I did was weactually stopped the boat.
The first time we stopped theboat I said look, alex, what do
you think?
I went around the crew and somesaid, oh, you know, and in the
(26:25):
end the call was mine, but Iwanted the crew involved and I
think that's you know, even on arecreational boat, I know the
skipper is the skipper is theskipper, but if you bring your
crew along, it makes thedecision making process.
You know everybody buys on.
And we went through and I saidlook, we're not going to be
there till eight o'clock.
All of a sudden, we've gonefrom a situation where african
(26:45):
tiger could look over the sideand say they're there and we can
go in and pick them up to asearch.
And we're talking about asearch where, all of a sudden.
My sweep width if I'm lucky andI'll be really generous 50
metres each side, 100 metres.
It's like needle in a haystack,needle in hand, working in on a
lee shore with rocks and reefsand stuff like that, and it was
(27:09):
just too dangerous.
If it had been midday and westill had another three or four
hours daylight it would havebeen a different story.
Probably we probably would havelike I didn't feel unsafe, if
that makes sense.
I know it was rough, but didn'tfeel unsafe.
It was well within thecapability of the crew and the
boat.
But it was that whole nightfalland that whole risk-reward
(27:30):
equation as a skipper thatyou've got to go through.
And we turned around and, yeah,it was again going out.
We'd rotated the crew everyhalf hour, so everybody had a
station helm radar sittingaround, you know.
And so what we do religiouslyon these jobs every half hour
you rotate a position so you canstay fresh and we did exactly
(27:51):
the same on the way home.
And yeah, to give you a sense,obviously now you can't see the
waves coming.
There were times when the wavewould just pick up our boat and
we'd weigh 11 tons and just moveus sideways.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
And real power there and a lot of water moving all at
once and I don't think lots ofpeople really understand waves,
of waves.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
It's like, yes, but you've got to understand the
forces that are sitting in thereand the pressure that it's
going to put on your boat.
And yeah, look, we felt safe.
I mean, we didn't feel, oh, myGod you know.
But yeah, it was a pretty quiettrip home.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
How do you and your team maintain, I guess, morale
and motivation?
Because you've gone out thereto do a job and you've had to
turn away from that job and goback.
You said it's quiet.
I guess you're just thinking alot about those guys that are
still out there.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
Yeah, you think, oh shit, those poor bastards.
You know, I mean we're in arelatively dry because we took
some waves over the top and weplaces where the boat leaks,
where we didn't expect it toleak, and stuff like that.
But you know, I mean we were ina much, much better position
and you just think, oh you poorbuggers.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Meanwhile in Gisborne , roger Faber and the family are
waiting together on the groundon the ground.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah, well, by that time we'd pretty much set up a
bit of a base down at thefishing club where the family
well, the family actually gottaken in by the Eastern group,
which have a premises down atthe port, and the family had
gone into this area.
The police had set up a littlebit of a coordination centre and
were talking to the family, etcetera, but the family had come
over to the club, we were allsort of sitting around listening
(29:38):
to radios, watching on AIS, andwe were watching that Coast
Guard boat head out from Napierdown the coast.
They actually stayed inshore abit where it was a bit more
sheltered, and then tried to getout off Napier.
We weren't in contact with themon VHF or anything like that.
Yeah, everyone was hoping forthe best and unfortunately we
(30:02):
did see that Coast Guard boatturn around before it got to the
area where the container shiphad seen them in and wondered
what was going on and shortlyafter that found out that they'd
had to abound in the search forsafety reasons, which obviously
, yeah, it was verydisappointing for everyone
waiting in the hope yeah, and Ithink it wasn't just you guys
(30:25):
locally in gisborne, it was thewhole country of sport fishers
and just general fishers whowere watching the flight radar
and all these new technologywe've got these days that you
can actually watch the rescue inaction and to see it finish for
the night and that Coast Guardboat turn back.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
It was just heartbreaking for a lot of clubs
that felt like it was their ownclub members going through it
as well.
It really hit home to a lot ofpeople just how this could
happen to any one of us.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yes, it was definitely a huge thing and we
got huge support from all of thenew zealand sports fishing
clubs in way of, obviously,phone calls, emails etc.
And, later on, financialsupport for the families once
the outcome had come to light,etc.
Which was great.
(31:13):
But, yeah, the technology Ithink we all downloaded flight
radar and the AIS and everythingwhich, yeah, it all gave us a
glimmer of hope, but, yeah, justunfortunately didn't have the
result that we all wanted.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
So we obviously heard that it ended in tragedy and
the guys weren't rescued.
How did that sit with your cluband your club members hearing
that there was so much hope atone stage and then that changed
overnight?
Speaker 4 (31:41):
As I say, we were preparing for a winter
tournament and so we had a largenumber of people in the club.
The club was basically packed.
It was a very sombre affair andpeople went.
They really felt it.
When fellow fishers have gonemissing doing what we love to do
, that's uh, that's very painfuland it was.
It was amazing to see thecamaraderie that came from all
(32:03):
of the fishermen.
We had fishermen from aroundNew Zealand in our club and
everybody's everyone bandedtogether and was supportive,
very supportive everyone else.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
So this is what drove a fundraising effort from
Whakatane absolutely it.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
It became very clear that everybody wanted to help in
what way they could.
So as a group, as our committeeand as a club, we decided that
the best way we could help atthat point was to launch a
fundraising effort amongst allof the entrants and other fellow
members of our fishing club,which raised $20,000, which was
(32:36):
fantastic.
And we did that in a couple ofdays and it was awesome to see
how everyone was prepared toreact and help out in such a
horrible circumstance.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Has that incident changed things at the Whakatane
Club?
Because you've gone down toGisborne and you've handed over
the cheque, as it was, butyou've also learned a bit from
what happened there.
Has that changed things at thewhakatane club?
Speaker 4 (32:58):
it has.
We have now implemented newrules.
We have a winter tunatournament coming up shortly and
minimum requirements for safetyequipment on our on vessels
that are to be fishing and, verysimply, an epirb is one of
those minimum requirements now.
So to think you can go fishingwithout them in this type of
environment short daylight hours, relatively high risk fishing
of it it's.
(33:18):
It's.
People are pushing theboundaries here.
They're going outside of whatwould be normal fishing grounds
into areas where vhf coveragecoverage is limited, if not
non-existent no cell phonecoverage.
So things like e-perbs, be itvessel e-perbs or personal
e-perbs, are now mandatory.
That that's a minimumrequirement for entering one of
our tournaments.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
And how was it on the ground for you, coming down
from Whakatane with the check,to say, hey look, we've been all
affected by this ourselves.
And how was it there inGisborne when?
Speaker 4 (33:48):
you turned up.
There was family members therewho were very emotional about
what had been taking place, whatwe were doing to offer our
support.
It was great to be able tooffer what we could.
There's very little else youcan do with it and there's not
much else we can offer exceptfor assisting those families
through what's a horrible timeand doing what the rest of our
(34:09):
members were happy to putforward, which was some cash to
help them survive and getthrough that horrible time.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
And, I think, anyone listening to this podcast.
All we're hoping for is takinga few moments to think about
when it does go bad and what youcan do to make sure you do come
home safe.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
That's right.
That's where the use of anEPIRB or a personal locator
beacon is absolutely essential,that the opportunity to get
rescued in any mishap at sea ismuch, greatly increased by that.
Just that simple bit oftechnology.
You'll get spotted, there willbe a helicopter come looking for
you.
Your chance of survival aremuch, much greater.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Basic technology, what's available to us all now
seems to be the key, I feel howdoes it compare to other rescues
you've been involved in, andare there lessons we can learn
from this, from from what coastguard experienced on that day?
I?
Speaker 3 (35:03):
think for me there was a couple.
I mean, look, I'd had I've beenin similar, not as extreme as
that, but going that way wherewe chased the boat from the
middle of hawk bay all the wayto mahi.
God help us before we could getthe people off it.
Um, I think there's a couple ofthings and, putting aside the
life jackets, comms, I meanwe've got four radios on board
(35:24):
the boat state and radio commswith people on the shore, that's
RCCNZ plus our own incidentmanagement team.
But I think, more importantly,every half an hour, religiously,
and we've got what we call asituation report and our boat's
tracked so I don't have to tellpeople where we are.
But we know where we are.
(35:45):
We know how much fuel we'reburning currently.
We know how much fuel we'veused.
We know I go around the crew,are you okay?
Are you okay?
Go around the crew, check theboat.
Is the boat going fine?
No issues, engine's runningperfectly normal.
We've got plenty of fuel.
And like, not on this job,because I knew we had plenty of
range, but on other jobs I havesat there and calculated how
(36:09):
much range I've got left.
You know, can I get back home?
And stuff like that.
Yes, I have always managed toget home.
But it's that sit rep, and Ithink it's not something that
most fishermen would do.
I think it's kind of like let'shead out tonight or tomorrow,
go for a fish.
You had enough, I've had enough, we'll go back home.
You know, with the bin is full,but we're religiously every
(36:31):
half hour.
What's our situation?
Are we still safe?
Is it getting more challengingand ways out.
So we had mentally identifiedlook, if it got really bad, can
we tuck somewhere into Mahia?
You know where can we go?
Because we're the same aseverybody else, from Gizzy,
basically, once you leave theharbour, that's it.
(36:53):
There's no safe haven, really,yeah, but we mentally think, you
know, could we tuck into Mahiasomewhere?
I'd spoken to some of thepolice in Mahia and said what's
it like there?
What are the conditions?
So I had a picture of what wasthere, so I had an escape route
if necessary.
Wouldn't have been comfortable.
But yeah, and I mean we've donetows from 30 or 40 miles
(37:15):
offshore and look, we see somequite small.
You know, I've been out thereand I've towed somebody back
that's broken down or whatever.
And you look around and youthink, really, brother, you're
going this far offshore with oneout.
You know a single outboard andI'm thinking, yeah, but I think
you're right, you hit part of itand that is we have a team.
So whenever we're doing a job,we've either got police, we've
(37:39):
got rccnz, we've got our ownincident management team, so
we've got an infrastructure thatis supporting us.
And I think that if smallerrecreational boats go, let's
build that network within oneanother.
Look, and if some of your matesare going home, you know,
sometimes the best thing is ifthey're questioning it, it's
kind of like, take that secondstep.
(38:00):
And we've got what we call aSAP process, and I'm also a
trainer, so I really beat thisinto people Stop, assess, plan
and then do something.
I've got to admit, mike, I'mnot a fisherman, but we've got
crew that are mad, keen fishersand other people that I know and
you can sort of see and it'slike I understand the passion,
(38:24):
but sometimes you've got to beable to stop and make that hard
call.
We always wear our PFDs but,equally importantly, inside each
of our crew's PFD we'veattached a PLB personal locator
beacon and then we have a smallflashing light, just a normal
whistle and stuff like that.
So the light is an extra.
(38:45):
So if you end up in the waterat night there's a little flashy
flash, but the PLB is, if youlike, the real lifesaver.
So that's attached.
The reason I mention that islook, we attended a boat that
overturned here and the guys,they had an EPIRB on board.
The boat went over so quicklyit had no time to grab it.
(39:06):
But if the PLB had either beenin their pocket or on themselves
, bingo.
Similarly, since that was amonth ago, literally two or
three weeks ago, we attended ayacht fire where the guy did
have a plb on him and we werealert.
Rccz was alerted literallywithin minutes.
So I personally think if youwear your life jacket, but,
(39:29):
equally importantly, personal,located beacons, I mean those,
those cheapest chips these daysreally, you know, you know 300,
400 bucks.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Yeah, if you're filling up the gas to go chase
these fish.
That kind of cost for a PLB isreally nothing and everyone on
board should have one right.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
The reason for everybody having their own PLB
is.
It's really easy to getseparated in the water and you
know, I mean if you're on yourown but the skipper's got the
PLB not particularly useful foryou.
So every crew member has a PLB.
Coast Guard in association withyou, guys are going to run some
(40:09):
seminars around the country.
So absolutely, if they're beingheld in your area, god's sake,
turn up.
I would say, because there'snothing beats sharing
experiences.
So I think that would have tobe a major plus.
Look, I'm not going to go inabout wearing life jackets and
stuff like that, because I thinkthat should be common sense and
(40:31):
having a PLB.
But I think if there was onething or a couple of things is
do what we do, and that's itlike stop, assess, plan.
But I think if there was onething or a couple of things is
do what we do, and that's itlike stop, assess, plan.
And it's like and as I say tomy crew, is look, stop, assess,
plan is not an excuse for athree-day hooey.
Okay, it is not beating thesubject to death.
(40:56):
It's like you know, if you'redoing something at home and it's
something big, what's the firstthing you do?
Sort of like take a deep breaththen get into it.
It's that kind of thing.
So stop and think about it andalso understand what your boat
can and can't do.
So I know, on CK, full noise, Iburn 97 litres an hour.
I know, at cruise, I burn 80litres an hour per side.
(41:17):
Know, at cruise, I burn 80litres an hour per side.
I know what the boat can do.
I know what my range is.
I know all of those kinds ofthings.
I know when my next service isdue.
I know what my gear is aboutand look, look after your gear,
but also engage that thingthat's between your ears and you
mentioned it as like there'salways fishing tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
A lot of our listeners would have done a
toolbox talk on a site orsomething like that.
So same thing, right?
Speaker 3 (41:45):
It's exactly the same .
And I say that to new people atCoast Guard.
I say treat this like aworkplace.
No, we're a bit more excitingthan the workplace.
But you know, and it's likewhen you go, health and safety
does not go out the door, it isnot.
Arguably, it is now morecritical.
You ain't going to walk home Ifyour boat breaks down.
(42:06):
You ain't walking home.
So do think about safety and itdoesn't have to be boring and
all the rest of it, but justthat short, sharp stuff.
And, as I said, look, wedebrief everything.
We debrief after training andwe go around the room and
there's only two questions youhave to answer what went well?
What could we improve?
(42:27):
That's a little bit differentto sort of like the standard.
You know two forms ofcommunication and all the rest
of it.
I would argue the mostimportant piece of equipment is
between your ears and engagingit.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
The funny thing is we do this when we're fishing a
lot.
We're like, oh, what were theconditions?
Like I caught fish on this day.
We analyze everything the wind,the swell, the tide.
We don't put that in a safetylens.
Sometimes it's all about how dowe get the fish to bite under
those conditions.
But maybe we should just, youknow, stop like you said and
(43:00):
think about how is the safetyimpaired with those conditions
as well, not just where are thefish going to be?
Speaker 3 (43:05):
Yeah, and I think it's real simple and it's not a
big deal.
I mean, you know it's like,yeah, and a lot of that stuff
can be done.
While you're cruising out, youknow you're still 200 metres
ashore, the boat's idling away,blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, just stay in touch withthe crew.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
I think in recent years well maybe even in the
last decade or so from a sportfishing perspective in
particular, chasing thesepelagic fish like marlin and
tuna the boats used to be a lotlarger, like launchers and
skippered by professional crewthat you would charter to go out
and get.
Nowadays we'll get a bunch ofguys who are tradies or mates or
(43:42):
whatever in a small aluminiumcraft and they're targeting the
same fish.
I think we need to be wary ofthat shift in the last decade or
so from large boats skipperedby professional crew to everyday
Kiwis trying to get a bit ofthe action themselves on their
own boat and it's totallyunderstandable.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
I mean it's like everything is becoming much more
, you know, like much more inthe reach of normal Kiwis, if I
can use that term, and it'sreally.
I mean it's really exciting.
You know, they see the picturein the paper somebody caught the
big fish and it's like that'sreally cool.
I mean, how hard can it be?
You know?
I mean because most of the timethey go out in good weather
(44:25):
they don't understand whathappens when it turns sand, how
bad it can really get.
And, as I said, you know, we'reboth arse and gizzy.
I mean there are no islands totuck in behind.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
You're in the open ocean and these guys were very
seasoned fishermen.
You know they weren't doingtheir first time fishing.
They'd been fishing plenty oftimes before and this one caught
them out, you know.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
And I mean, and that's why and I'm always really
, really careful I don't knowthe guys, but from all accounts
I'm highly experienced but youknow, I've been at sea and it's
like sometimes, as I said before, shit happens and it's like a
wave or something like that, andit's almost like it doesn't
matter how experienced you are,something happens and it can
(45:11):
have a really sad outcome.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
Finally, Roger, what's changed at Gisborne
Tadapuri Club since thisincident?
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Yes, a huge amount by a heck of a lot of guys.
Now it basically was early onin our bluefin tuna season.
It really rocked everybody tothe degree that very few people
went bluefin tuna fishing.
After that we all had a realgood look at our safety
equipment and our systems onboard.
(45:39):
Unfortunately, gisborne well,it is a very exposed area.
Out off Gisborne We've got noislands, nothing.
Our Coast Guard did used to runskids during the weekends but
they found they weren't gettingthe support.
They didn't have the radiooperators and when they did
schedule someone on thereweren't enough nice days in the
weekend to basically warrantsomeone sitting down there, so
(46:02):
they dropped that.
So we didn't have an actualcoast guard manning a radio in
gisborne.
We did have a channel which wastransferred to tower.
I think it is where you couldcall up and put in a trip report
, but it was relatively unusedby all the members.
It was a huge wake-up call anda lot more people use that now.
(46:24):
As I mentioned, we all wentthrough our safety gear.
The club did actually organisea safety day and a safety
evening.
We got suppliers of safetyequipment to come to the club
display all their latest gearthat they had, which that was a
great success, and a lot ofpeople came through that during
the day and then in the eveningwe had spokesmen from Coast
(46:46):
Guard, hutch Wilco andMetService.
Chris Bandolino actually camealong and spoke to us, which was
very educational about how theyweather forecast and what they
do, because the one thing thatcame out of it hugely was how
come that forecast was so wrongon that particular day and, yeah
, that's something that we can'treally understand.
(47:09):
I still can't understand tothis day how come they got it so
wrong.
But yeah, it's just one ofthose things.
Another thing that came out ofit very clearly for me was we've
got all these apps that we lookat for the forecast and I
usually go through windy, swellmap and boy weather, but I
actually just go on the freeones, like windy, for instance,
(47:30):
is only updated every 12 hours.
If you go into the free app andjust going back to the day that
we were out there, one of myother crew members had windy,
but they had the paidsubscription.
Now that gets updated everythree hours and they actually
looked at the update just beforewe decided to pull the pin and
the updated forecast on windywas showing very similar to what
(47:53):
we actually had up near 20 andit had gone from the one at five
knots from sort of first thingin the morning and was showing
and that sort of made it oh well, okay, this isn't going to drop
off, this is what we're getting, so let's pull the pin and go
home.
So one of the things I didimmediately was subscribe to
windy to get the update, becausewhen I went back on windy I
still had the five knot forecastsitting there and yeah, that
(48:16):
was a real learning curve for alot of people, but it really
opened our eyes, and even myself.
You know, you go and test yourEPIRB.
Yes, the light comes on and itflashes, but I didn't look at
the date and the actual date hadexpired on it.
On my EPIRB we didn't have PLBsat that stage.
So the actual suppliers and thelocal retailers put on some
(48:40):
very, very good packages onEPIRBs, plbs, inflatable life
jackets, basically all the thing, and I think the whole country
basically got on board withthose specials and they all sold
out of all that gear.
I've now put AIS on my boat and, yeah, so well from safety
point of view.
That's probably the one goodthing that has come out of it,
(49:03):
if you can say, is that it madeeveryone conscious to have a
real good look at their gear andtheir systems, their debriefs
and things they do before theygo fishing.
And everyone you know, even themost experienced guys, said, hey
, it's given me a real wake upand yeah, I do things
differently now.
The other big thing that'sreally come out of it now is
(49:24):
buddy boating, and we inhindsight should have probably
kept in touch the three boats alot more than we did, knowing
that conditions weren't thegreatest, and found out exactly
what plans were of each otherand what we were doing.
But I think as fishermen andgame fishermen, we can all be a
little bit secretive at times.
(49:44):
We don't want to give away toomuch and when we got a hot find,
a hot bite or something, wewant to have that to ourselves
for for a while.
So we don't tend to shareinformation as much as we should
.
But definitely now you know ifI'm going and I know there's
other boats out there and on thewater I'm definitely keeping in
touch with what we're doing,what our plans are, you know,
(50:06):
making sure that we're allhopefully come back safe.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
The one thing I'm thinking about is the VHF black
spots and the mobile black spotsthat are in your backyard.
There there's been a bit of apush to get Rocket Lab to put
some extended coverage, and whatare your thoughts on that?
Will that help alleviate someof the issues around Gisbert?
Speaker 2 (50:29):
Yes, most definitely down the area we're in.
It is marginal for cell phoneand also for VHF, and that was
probably something that struckat the time with us when we were
out there.
You know, hey, are they just inone of those marginal areas and
they're outside of our VHFchannel 60, which is the local
(50:51):
channel that we actually all useout of Gisborne, and also in
the area where they don't getcell phone coverage.
Um, the drive is obviously forthose sites to be put in.
Rocket lab are out at the endof my year and it's a perfect
site for something to be donethere and there is quite a cost
involved in putting those in androcket lab have basically said,
(51:15):
hey, they're happy to supportwith giving an area out there
where they can be located, butthere would need to be some
funding found to actually put,especially a cell site or
whatever was going to go inthere in place.
There's so many ifs and buts inthis incident and, as I
mentioned in hindsight, hey, weall wish on the day we'd done
(51:37):
things differently and you know,it's just one of those things
that will lead us.
We all could have done thingsdifferently and should have done
things differently.
But you don't know at the timeand you can only look back at it
and hopefully learn from it.
Speaker 1 (51:51):
Hayden Johnson talking about Whakatane.
Just, they were getting readyfor their bluefin tournament
when this happened and you knowit became very solemn at their
club and that's why they decidedto, you know, put the buckets
around and raise some money foryou guys yeah, and that was
awesome from their point of view.
Speaker 2 (52:07):
they got twenty thousand dollars together for us
and they came over andpresented us with that and there
were a few of the boats fromhere.
It actually intended to goaround and fish that tuna
bluefin tuna contest that theywere running.
As it was, the sea conditionswas never going to allow us to
get around the cape to get thereanyway.
So, um, that put pay to it, butthe event meant that we weren't
(52:29):
going anywhere near the sea forfor a time.
I know my crew, uh, took quitea few months before they were
actually keen to get back on thewater and felt comfortable with
doing it Myself also.
It has rocked a lot of us inGisborne and it's rocked me too.
I regularly think about it.
(52:50):
To be quite honest, this newseason coming up, bluefin season
coming up, sort of stillpondering whether we should be
doing a bluefin sweepstakecontest again or not.
And, yeah, we've got acommittee meeting on Monday and
that will be discussed and we'llmake a decision on whether to
or whether we're not going to.
(53:10):
Yeah, well, it was a terribleyear last year, you know, there
was obviously the angler washedor fell overboard, that drowned
off Whakatane also, and then thethree down here.
I just hope it has openedeveryone's eyes and this bluefin
fishery is going to beobviously treated a little bit
different this coming winter andwe don't have any fatalities
(53:32):
like we had last season.
Speaker 1 (53:33):
Yeah, so Coast Guard and New Zealandaland sport
fishing council are runningeight courses around the country
for bluefin tuna, just aroundsafety.
There's a bit of informationaround how to catch them, but
there will definitely be a largesafety component, like the bar
crossing seminars that coastguard ran.
So this is all spurred off fromwhat happened in gisborne and
you know so there is a bit ofsilver lining out of those dark
(53:56):
clouds that it's actually putorganisations into action and
said, hey, we need to do betterand educate more people just
about the risks, because thoseswells five metre swells, 40
knot winds I just couldn'tquickly and that was sort of
when the next day when it wentround to Southerly and we did
(54:20):
have those 40-knot winds andthose big swells.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
Yeah, I'm glad we weren't out there, to be quite
honest.
Yeah, it's forecasting is a bigone, that you know.
I just hope we can get thatbetter too, because that's a big
one that we all rely on.
Speaker 1 (54:36):
And when it's wrong, unfortunately, you have
incidents like this and yeah,yeah that concludes this episode
of the new zealand sportfishing council pod and real
podcast.
Thank you to maritime newzealand and the safer boating
forum for funding this episode.
Thank you,
Welcome back to the NZSFC Pod and Reel podcast.
I'm Mike Plant from the NewZealand Sport Fishing Council.
This week we're revisiting atragedy that occurred last year
off the coast of Gisborne, whenthree men lost their lives while
fishing for bluefin tuna.
We'll hear from Henry Van Teel,who was the skipper of the
Hawke's Bay Coast Guard boatthat ventured out to rescue
(00:37):
these men.
We'll also hear from thepresident of the Whakatane Sport
Fishing Club and how itimpacted their team on the
ground.
But first we're joined by RogerFaber, the president of the
Gisborne Tatapuri Fishing Club.
Roger, before we revisit whathappened last year, this year
has actually been an amazingfishing season for all your
(00:57):
anglers.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yeah, it's been a great season which started early
in December, which was awesometo see, with some real nice big
iron.
I think there were half a dozenover 100 kilos caught and then
obviously yellowfin turned upwith a similar sort of time,
were amongst them and marlinslightly later.
I think the first marlin wascaught before Christmas, but a
little bit later than the bigeye and then after Christmas,
(01:21):
new Year flowed on and yeah, allin all it'd probably be one of
our best seasons ever,definitely best season I can
ever remember for Yellowfin inthe sort of 40-something years
I've been involved with gamefishing out here Amazing.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
And you know, gisborne's really got some
challenging conditions to getout, and when you get those
weather windows, the guys wantto do it.
And I guess that kind of leadsus into what we're chatting
about today, with what happenedlast year.
And the weather window lookedpretty good, didn't it?
To start with?
For you guys it was five knots,and can you tell me a bit about
what the decision was to gofishing on that Monday?
(02:00):
Was it a fishing comp?
What was going on?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah on, yeah, okay.
So basically we had had theweekend, um, there had been
quite a number of boats out thathad done very, very well on the
bluefin tuna, in a pacific areawhich is called the southern
dog's leg, which is about 30miles sort of south of gisborne,
directly off mahir peninsula umso some good fish had been
(02:22):
caught, the talk was around andeverything.
Ourselves had looked at theforecast and saw a weather
window.
Five knots northerly wasforecast.
There was a little bit of swell, there was sort of two and a
half meters swell, but thought,hey, with that sort of five
knots it shouldn't be a problem,especially trolling et cetera.
So four of us decided let's go.
So 7am in the the morning webasically left the harbour.
(02:46):
I got a Caribbean 40 launch andwe headed down to that
particular area, unbeknown to usat the time.
We did run into one of theother boats, or come across I
shouldn't say run into, comeacross one of the other boats
that had a similar plan and thatwas a guy called Carl Bennett
on his boat for real.
(03:08):
We talked to him on the VHFradio, basically talked about
our plan and what we were goingto do for the day and sort of
continued on.
Now a big thing we noticed aswe got sort of further on the
forecast the breeze wasdefinitely building and was up
well over the five knotsforecast and as we got out
(03:29):
further and further got up toprobably around about 20 knots
from the north, which, yeah, itwas sort of a little bit ugly on
top of that sort of sizenortherly swell and some of the
biggest sets were breaking asthey sort of went along.
We were in our boat, evenpretty uncomfortable about those
(03:50):
conditions and we didn't evenput our outriggers out, we just
put a couple of lures out andtrolled slowly with the sea,
hoping that the wind would dropoff and the day would turn into
pretty much what was forecast.
And yeah, we just carried onlike that for for a little while
and, um, yeah, nothing reallychanged.
(04:11):
Um, at the time carl in his boathad talked to elwood higgins,
who's another local guy who haddecided to go out.
He went left a little bit laterthan us.
His plan was to go to an areadirectly out of gisborne and
then head down to where we werefishing and he talked on the vhf
to him and basically we knewthe three boats were out there
(04:34):
and we basically just carried ondoing our own thing.
About 9 am we had a boat goacross our bow, running side on
to the swells.
It blew a hull.
It wasn't a boat that Irecognized and actually my crew
said who's that?
And I said, oh well, it's not,uh, earlwood and it's not carl,
(04:56):
it must be a boat out from mahiand we basically just left it at
that and um carried on.
Wasn't till later on, and verymuch later on and well and truly
when we were back on shore,that we found out that that was
actually Earl Woods.
He actually had two boatsunbeknown to me, both called
Billy Boy.
One was a five and a half meterpontoon which I was aware of,
(05:19):
and then he had this WestCoaster, which was a seven to
eight meter west coaster, andthat was a boat that actually
went across our bow.
At the time we carried on, justas I say, idling didn't drop off
and we weren't comfortable withit.
We had discussions about whatwe were going to do.
It didn't seem to be droppingaway and it was, uh, probably
(05:41):
about 11 am.
Carl Bennett gave me a call onthe VHF and said, hey, this is
not nice at all, it's prettyugly, we're going to pull the
pin, go back in.
He's an ex-commercial longliner.
He also worked for EastlandPort on their boats for a time.
We'd already pretty much hadthat discussion and made the
same decision that hey, thisisn't nice, let's turn and start
(06:04):
heading for home, whichbasically was into the sea to a
degree.
I tried to call Elwood at thatstage and just see what his
plans were and didn't get anyreply.
I wondered whether he'd alreadydecided to go in or whether
he'd even come out any furtherand he'd turned back earlier, et
cetera, et cetera.
But we slowly made our way home.
(06:26):
We couldn't do a lot of pace.
When we got inside the 100meter line the sea did improve.
That wind dropped off quiteconsiderably and we were able to
make better time, but we justbasically moved and kept heading
back towards the port.
Carl had his son on board whoactually did work at the
(06:47):
Eastland port and he was able toget onto the cameras at the
boat ramp car park and theyactually called me up and said
there was a trailer and a ute inthe car park and they sort of
were a little bit concerned forElwood and what had happened and
whether it was him or wasn'this vehicle or what we didn't
(07:08):
know.
And we did try and contact himon cell phone, which we didn't
have any luck with, but at thatstage we sort of weren't too
sure what was happening etc.
So we just kept our way home.
At about 1pm I got back into theharbor.
(07:29):
I was ahead of carl andimmediately went down to the
boat ramp to check out thevehicle.
Now, the vehicle wasn't carl'svehicle.
The trailer on the back of itwas bigger than the pontoon boat
that I knew of the billy boythat he had, and I wasn't sure
whose it was or what they weredoing.
Being a northerly, the baypoverty bay was actually quite
(07:52):
flat and quite nice in therebecause it's quite sheltered.
So, wondered whether it wassomeone out there, I stayed
around down that area, tried tomake phone calls to some
Earlwood's best mates to see ifthey knew where he was or what
was going on, who was out withhim, et cetera, et cetera, and a
little bit of time did pass,and that's probably something I
(08:13):
still regret to this day that wedidn't call Coast Guard or the
police earlier and we probablywasted an hour or so just trying
to get in contact to get moreinformation about whose vehicle
this was, because it wasn'tearlwood's ute.
And uh, you know, and turned outthat it was actually one
earlwood's cruise damienmcpherson's ute that was on, was
(08:37):
there?
Um, but we didn't find that outto considerably time later carl
was again in contact with usand he was very, very concerned
as we were getting at that stage.
He had rung Coast Guard one ofthe crew members or skippers on
Coast Guard and informed him ofwhat was going on and that we
were concerned.
And basically that was when thesearch was sort of started or
(09:01):
the police started to coordinategetting Coast Guard together
and Coast Guard were down theregetting organized and on standby
.
Eastern Rescue Helicopter wasalso notified and put on standby
.
Things sort of progressed fromthere.
The police came down and saw us, talked to us and got as much
information.
I talked to the RescueHelicopter and Coast Guard about
(09:24):
what we knew at that stageabout where these guys were,
what they were doing.
It seemed like a long time butit may not have been a lot of
time.
But once they coordinated thesearch they started to head out
to see what they could do.
Probably that's a bit when wewere listening on VHF radio to
Coast Guard talking to them onthe phone and basically they
(09:51):
started heading out and it wasjust by that stage got worse and
worse and worse.
It was too rough for them toactually get totally out to
where we'd last seen the guysand the rescue helicopter was
sort of in a similar situation.
They did manage to get out buthad to turn back before they got
to the search area.
As far as I am aware, andbasically it was just, yeah,
(10:12):
being winter, it was dark, bro,just after five o'clock.
So they only really got acouple of hours in searching
before it was too dark and thesearch for the day had to be
called off.
We we actually had a committeemeeting that night and I stayed
down the club all day.
I basically didn't go anywhere.
The family by that time hadcome down to the boat ramp.
(10:33):
They were obviously waiting tohopefully hear some good news.
So they were around the boatramp at a committee meeting.
We did get requests from one ofthe family members to go out and
search.
This was after Coast Guard hadcome in and said it was too
rough.
I wasn't even in my boat,wasn't willing to go about and
(10:53):
risk extra lives.
I said if Coast Guard can't dotheir thing in those conditions
we won't be able to do anythingand searching at night would be
basically impossible.
But yes, media did get in touchwith me and basically told them
what we could and went live onair on the one news and the
(11:13):
breakfast show on TV3 that itwas the next morning, just to
let people know what was goingon, and we were all keeping our
fingers crossed that somethingpositive was going to happen.
Iroquois was put up, the AirForce Iroquois was put up to
search for them and basically,yeah, it was really just a
waiting game.
Probably one of the hardestthings was sitting on shore in a
(11:35):
harbour full of boats, whereevery boat in that harbour
probably would have been outsearching if conditions would
have allowed it.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah, and then there was a glimmer of hope, because
it was known that this was it acargo ship that was going past,
spotted the men and this startedmaking the news that they had
been spotted alive in the ocean.
But the ship was too big tostop or turn around and they
threw some rescue gear.
But that was pretty much.
You know.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
It was that little glimmer of hope that everyone
was hanging on to finally camethrough yeah, that was probably
early afternoon the next day, soyou know, probably 30 hours
after the incident or whateverdid happen to them actually took
place.
It was a I think it was acontainer ship and they went
(12:22):
past.
We were listening, listening onVHF, to Coast Guard or Maritime
Rescue, I think it was at thatstage.
We're on there talking to them.
They said they saw two men inthe water waving their arms to
them.
Now, looking at the conditionsat the time, it was gone round
to southerly and it was 35, 40knots and a huge sea.
(12:43):
Under that swell those menwould have been tossed around
all over the place.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
These guys?
They weren't amateur fishermen,they had done plenty of fishing
.
They were club members, of yourclub.
One was a referee, so they werefit guys, weren't they?
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yes, yep, All very fit young guys with young
families, which is one of theworst parts about it all.
They did a lot of fishing.
They were members of the club.
The club actually had twofishing contests running at the
time.
We had a bluefin tunasweepstake running and we also
had what we call our wintercontest running, which had
(13:20):
prizes for bluefin in it andalso prizes for other species,
which had prizes for bluefin init and also prizes for other
species.
Coincidentally, none of thesethree guys had entered either of
those contests.
They had basically just decidedthat the yellowfin were running
, there was a weather window toget out there and they decided
to go for a pleasure fish thatparticular day Henry Vantel
(13:40):
joins us.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
He is the president and skipper of Coast Guard
Hawke's Bay.
16 years he's been there, andpreviously was in Wellington for
six or seven years.
So that's over two decades ofexperience.
Henry, when were you made awareof this?
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Before we get too far into it, mike, I just want to
recognise that Elwood, tana andDamien they lost their lives and
you know our condolences andthoughts are with the whānau.
So you know, I think when wetalk this through I certainly
remember that there are threepeople that lost their lives
over this.
I personally became aware of itabout four o'clock, believe it
(14:18):
or not, on Monday afternoon andit was a pure coincidence.
So the police officer that ledthe initial search is actually a
Hawke's Bay-based policeofficer and he's part of the
Hawke's Bay SAR squad.
So I knew him pretty well andwe've worked through a number of
(14:41):
other marine searches in thepast.
So he just rang and said heylook, henry, this is going down.
I'm just looking for somebodyexternal just to sort of give
him a little bit of support.
So it was clearly outside ofour area.
So, as I understood, it was onthe east coast of Mahia and we
certainly go up, if you like, tothe bottom of Mahia, portland
(15:04):
Island sort of thing.
But from there on upwards itbecomes a Gizzy job, simply
because Gizzy can get there muchmore quickly than we can.
So I just had a chat with Alexabout what was going down and
just sort of gave him somethoughts and stuff like that.
We were quite clear at thatstage we were not involved
unless it got really big andthey requested our assistance.
(15:26):
But it was clearly seen and Iknow that Gizzy Aaron from Gizzy
got on the water pretty quicklyand then the Gizzy helicopter
went there and did a search.
I wasn't involved very closelybut I was aware that Westerner
went out as well, that there'dbeen some offers of assistance
and stuff like that.
So that's what we knew onMonday night.
And I also knew that Westernerwent out as well, that there'd
been some offers of assistanceand stuff like that.
So that's what we knew onMonday night.
(15:47):
And I also knew that the policehad handed it over to RCCNZ.
And that's simply for people'sinformation.
Is Roman knows it's about 18nautical miles offshore, so it's
beyond the 12-mile limit.
That's the normal dividing linefor RCCNZ and police.
So I was aware that it had goneto RCCNZ and I was aware that
(16:08):
there'd been a reach out to theAir Force to get a Poseidon and
to do a search.
So that was Monday night.
So we were aware of it, we wereaware that people were doing
stuff, but at that stage we weredirectly involved.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
And so the search was mounted on Monday, but it was
somewhat fruitless, because theconditions just got worse and
hampered the emergency services.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Yeah, and look, I don't think and this is
particularly for your listenersand we can talk about it a
little bit further on is thatthe reality.
Like, if we're searching forwhat we call person in the water
and it sounds terrible becauseyou depersonalize it, but it's
important to sort of like tryand just do the process, putting
the knight to one side.
Think about you're looking forsomething the size of a
(16:53):
basketball and really, in thoseconditions, probably what we
call sweep width, that's theside, either side of the boat,
probably a maximum of 100 meters, so 50 meters and 50 meters
either side of the boat, andthat a maximum of 100 metres, so
50 metres and 50 metres eitherside of the boat, and that's
what you can search and, if youlike, that's the area that we
would sweep and then we wouldcome down and do another leg and
stuff like that.
(17:13):
So it is really really quitesmall relative to the size of
the sea.
But, as you're saying, mike,the conditions just deteriorated
that night.
It was cool.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yeah, it was cooled off until first light the next
Tuesday, and then there was somehope.
Two of the crew were spottedalive in the water by the crew
of the African Tiger containership.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Yeah.
So I was aware of the Poseidonthat night and in the morning I
was aware that they'd done aradar search and a thermal
search and found obviously foundnothing.
I got phoned just before middayat 11.51.
The CNC rang us and said heylook, their drift model showed
(17:57):
that there's a potential for theboat, if it was on the surface,
to have actually come intoHawke Bay and would we be
willing to carry out a search?
At that stage they gave me anarea of about 800 square
nautical miles and I said look,no, basically, and the reason
for that was the conditions wererough but manageable from our
(18:18):
point of view.
But the reality is, when you'researching that big an area,
aerial asset is what you want.
It's much faster than us and,to give you an idea, researching
for a boat in those conditionswe'd have a sweet width of, if
you're really lucky, half anautical mile call it 1,000
metres and you're dealing with800 square nautical miles.
(18:38):
It would be sheer luck that youfound anything and no real
starting points.
So I said look, but if you seesomething, something we will
give it a go and try and recoverit so I guess it's quite
remarkable the crew on thiscontainer ship.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
We're actually just able to see these men in the
water as well.
Like what are the chances ofthat?
Speaker 3 (18:58):
it's like if they had left I don't know what time
they left Napier, but they hadleft Napier and were transiting
through.
What their advantage is is that, instead of being, say, on our
boat CK, you're probably youreyesight two metres above sea
level.
On a log carrier you're talkingabout 50 or 60 metres, so
you're looking down rather thantrying to look across, if people
(19:21):
can get that picture.
But you're exactly right, itwas just sheer luck.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Yeah, looking at the report, it was saying a
six-metre swell and 50-knotwinds and low visibility.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Yeah, there were showers coming through and stuff
and the fact that they could,so obviously they saw them and
then they had to slow and comeback, so they lost them but then
found them again.
So I mean it was justremarkable that they were able
to do that.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
To be honest, it was just that ship I saw was 180
metres long, so manoeuvring inthose conditions is so dangerous
as well for that ship.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
And in fact they sustained some damage.
I don't know what damage theysustained, but my understanding
is, when they finally left, theysaid look, we've actually
sustained some damage and we'vegot to go.
So that was call it.
Say midday-ish that theycontacted me.
And then, yeah, 1340, so 20 to2, a CCNZ rang us and told them
(20:18):
that two persons in the waterhad been spotted off Portland
Island.
And my first thought was youhave got, you know really?
So, look, I had already rungcrew because of the earlier
approach, so we had handpicked acrew to go if something turned
up.
So I rang the crew and said hey, look, this is a situation I
(20:39):
think it's doable from our pointof view.
If you're happy, you can come,and so we put a crew together.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
How do you make that call between wanting to go out
and do your job and also keepinga bit of mind for your own
family, your crew's family,those you're putting at risk?
Speaker 3 (21:03):
That's the hard part.
I remember vividly my firstskipper, morris Guppy, when I
was down in Wellington andMorris was really strong, he
said look, if you look, there'sno point in hammering the boat
and the crew arriving on sceneand you can't do anything.
It sounds brutal, but yourfirst priority is look after
your crew.
If you look after your crewwhen you get on scene, you can
do something.
But if you don't look afteryourselves, you're not going to
(21:25):
be able to do the job.
And we religiously on this job,every half an hour we don't
stop the boat.
What's the weather gettingbetter or worse?
How's the crew going?
What's the boat doing?
What's our fuel burn?
What fuel have we used?
It's kind of like you take astop, take every half an hour.
If it's good to go, you carryon, if it's not good to go, you
(21:46):
make another call.
And so those are my things andat the end of the day I take
really seriously that I've got amoral obligation to my crew to
bring them back.
And that's what we did on thisjob is as soon as we left.
So we gassed up, obviously,made sure we had every litre of
diesel on the boat that we couldget.
(22:07):
A 12-metre boat, 960 horsepower.
So we've got twin 480s drivingHamilton jets.
We cruise at 28 knots in notquite any conditions, but
regularly 28 knots is our cruisespeed.
The best we could do was about12 or 15 knots and that was
(22:28):
directly towards where the guyshad last been seen.
So we actually it was almostlike a yacht we tacked, so we
actually put the weather on ourstarboard quarter forward,
quarter, just so we managed toget up to about 15 or 16 knots
and then had to come back in andsort of make our way that way,
(22:50):
but religiously, every half hour.
How's everything going?
This is going, this is going,that's going, yep.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
While Henry and the crew of Hawke's Bay Coast Guard
were assessing the conditionsfurther up the coast, the
Whakatane Sport Fishing Club wasquite a hive of activity.
President of Whakatane SportFishing Club, Hayden Johnson,
joins us.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
We were preparing for our annual bluefin tuna fishing
tournament at the time, and sowe were quite aware of what was
happening around the country andkeeping an eye out on where the
fishing was happening and whatwe were likely to see.
We were also aware of some ofthe boats that were coming from
that area that were going to becoming to fish our tournament.
So, yeah, we were keeping aneye out, seeing what was
happening.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
And when this incident happened.
What was it like at theWhakatane Club when it happened?
How did you guys react and whatwas happening?
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Losing any fellow fishers going missing is
horrible for all of us, and sothere was a lot of concern and a
lot of people talking about it,and it brings up a lot of
conversations about associatedrisks with our type of fishing
sport fishing that we do as well.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
For sure.
So I've heard some stories fromother people that they're
actually listening to the CoastGuard channel, where they could
hear it, or they were watchingthe flight radar when the rescue
was happening.
Were any of your club membersor yourself doing that?
Speaker 4 (24:09):
Absolutely.
This modern technology you'vebeen able to see what's
happening with a rescue is quiteoutstanding, and been able to
see the ship tracker, the flightradar, seeing where the rescue
helicopters are going, the fixedwings are going.
Obviously, we weren't able tobe listening in on the side of
the coast, but that technologywas outstanding to watch.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Back to Henry Van Teel and the crew of the Coast
Guard Hawke's Bay.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
It was getting dark.
I think we were within 20 or 30minutes of sunset.
We'd been copying the radiotransmissions and so we knew
that African tiger had left thescene.
And so all of a sudden, therewas a couple of factors that was
, some extra factors to weigh in, so we knew where the guys had
been seen at 1.30 or 13.30.
(24:53):
And we also had a lat long forwhere they were at 15.30, about
two hours later.
And so I plotted those on ourGPS and I had Alex who was on
helm, and I said Alex, that'syour new go-to Head, straight
for that.
And the best we could do was, Imean, the conditions were
getting, I was comfortable, Imean you know it was rough, but
I didn't feel at all concerned,and the best speed we could do
(25:18):
was eight knots.
So that gives you a sense ofwhat had happened.
The wind at that stage was 30to 40.
It was an honest three-meterswell with the odd five-meter
coming through, and then ofcourse there's the wind waves
sitting on top of that.
So the best we could do iseight knots.
(25:41):
So I could calculate.
The best we were going tomanage was we'd be on scene by
eight o'clock at night and theoriginal position was about
eight miles more or less southof Portland.
Obviously, the next positionwas a lot closer to Portland,
slash Mahia.
At eight o'clock they wouldhave been pretty close to the
coast and obviously you knowreefs, rocks working in there at
(26:03):
nightfall, at nighttime, and weknew the waves were bigger down
there and five or six meters.
It was just too dangerous.
It was like no, this is.
And so what I did was weactually stopped the boat.
The first time we stopped theboat I said look, alex, what do
you think?
I went around the crew and somesaid, oh, you know, and in the
(26:25):
end the call was mine, but Iwanted the crew involved and I
think that's you know, even on arecreational boat, I know the
skipper is the skipper is theskipper, but if you bring your
crew along, it makes thedecision making process.
You know everybody buys on.
And we went through and I saidlook, we're not going to be
there till eight o'clock.
All of a sudden, we've gonefrom a situation where african
(26:45):
tiger could look over the sideand say they're there and we can
go in and pick them up to asearch.
And we're talking about asearch where, all of a sudden.
My sweep width if I'm lucky andI'll be really generous 50
metres each side, 100 metres.
It's like needle in a haystack,needle in hand, working in on a
lee shore with rocks and reefsand stuff like that, and it was
(27:09):
just too dangerous.
If it had been midday and westill had another three or four
hours daylight it would havebeen a different story.
Probably we probably would havelike I didn't feel unsafe, if
that makes sense.
I know it was rough, but didn'tfeel unsafe.
It was well within thecapability of the crew and the
boat.
But it was that whole nightfalland that whole risk-reward
(27:30):
equation as a skipper thatyou've got to go through.
And we turned around and, yeah,it was again going out.
We'd rotated the crew everyhalf hour, so everybody had a
station helm radar sittingaround, you know.
And so what we do religiouslyon these jobs every half hour
you rotate a position so you canstay fresh and we did exactly
(27:51):
the same on the way home.
And yeah, to give you a sense,obviously now you can't see the
waves coming.
There were times when the wavewould just pick up our boat and
we'd weigh 11 tons and just moveus sideways.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
And real power there and a lot of water moving all at
once and I don't think lots ofpeople really understand waves,
of waves.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
It's like, yes, but you've got to understand the
forces that are sitting in thereand the pressure that it's
going to put on your boat.
And yeah, look, we felt safe.
I mean, we didn't feel, oh, myGod you know.
But yeah, it was a pretty quiettrip home.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
How do you and your team maintain, I guess, morale
and motivation?
Because you've gone out thereto do a job and you've had to
turn away from that job and goback.
You said it's quiet.
I guess you're just thinking alot about those guys that are
still out there.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
Yeah, you think, oh shit, those poor bastards.
You know, I mean we're in arelatively dry because we took
some waves over the top and weplaces where the boat leaks,
where we didn't expect it toleak, and stuff like that.
But you know, I mean we were ina much, much better position
and you just think, oh you poorbuggers.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Meanwhile in Gisborne , roger Faber and the family are
waiting together on the groundon the ground.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah, well, by that time we'd pretty much set up a
bit of a base down at thefishing club where the family
well, the family actually gottaken in by the Eastern group,
which have a premises down atthe port, and the family had
gone into this area.
The police had set up a littlebit of a coordination centre and
were talking to the family, etcetera, but the family had come
over to the club, we were allsort of sitting around listening
(29:38):
to radios, watching on AIS, andwe were watching that Coast
Guard boat head out from Napierdown the coast.
They actually stayed inshore abit where it was a bit more
sheltered, and then tried to getout off Napier.
We weren't in contact with themon VHF or anything like that.
Yeah, everyone was hoping forthe best and unfortunately we
(30:02):
did see that Coast Guard boatturn around before it got to the
area where the container shiphad seen them in and wondered
what was going on and shortlyafter that found out that they'd
had to abound in the search forsafety reasons, which obviously
, yeah, it was verydisappointing for everyone
waiting in the hope yeah, and Ithink it wasn't just you guys
(30:25):
locally in gisborne, it was thewhole country of sport fishers
and just general fishers whowere watching the flight radar
and all these new technologywe've got these days that you
can actually watch the rescue inaction and to see it finish for
the night and that Coast Guardboat turn back.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
It was just heartbreaking for a lot of clubs
that felt like it was their ownclub members going through it
as well.
It really hit home to a lot ofpeople just how this could
happen to any one of us.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yes, it was definitely a huge thing and we
got huge support from all of thenew zealand sports fishing
clubs in way of, obviously,phone calls, emails etc.
And, later on, financialsupport for the families once
the outcome had come to light,etc.
Which was great.
(31:13):
But, yeah, the technology Ithink we all downloaded flight
radar and the AIS and everythingwhich, yeah, it all gave us a
glimmer of hope, but, yeah, justunfortunately didn't have the
result that we all wanted.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
So we obviously heard that it ended in tragedy and
the guys weren't rescued.
How did that sit with your cluband your club members hearing
that there was so much hope atone stage and then that changed
overnight?
Speaker 4 (31:41):
As I say, we were preparing for a winter
tournament and so we had a largenumber of people in the club.
The club was basically packed.
It was a very sombre affair andpeople went.
They really felt it.
When fellow fishers have gonemissing doing what we love to do
, that's uh, that's very painfuland it was.
It was amazing to see thecamaraderie that came from all
(32:03):
of the fishermen.
We had fishermen from aroundNew Zealand in our club and
everybody's everyone bandedtogether and was supportive,
very supportive everyone else.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
So this is what drove a fundraising effort from
Whakatane absolutely it.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
It became very clear that everybody wanted to help in
what way they could.
So as a group, as our committeeand as a club, we decided that
the best way we could help atthat point was to launch a
fundraising effort amongst allof the entrants and other fellow
members of our fishing club,which raised $20,000, which was
(32:36):
fantastic.
And we did that in a couple ofdays and it was awesome to see
how everyone was prepared toreact and help out in such a
horrible circumstance.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Has that incident changed things at the Whakatane
Club?
Because you've gone down toGisborne and you've handed over
the cheque, as it was, butyou've also learned a bit from
what happened there.
Has that changed things at thewhakatane club?
Speaker 4 (32:58):
it has.
We have now implemented newrules.
We have a winter tunatournament coming up shortly and
minimum requirements for safetyequipment on our on vessels
that are to be fishing and, verysimply, an epirb is one of
those minimum requirements now.
So to think you can go fishingwithout them in this type of
environment short daylight hours, relatively high risk fishing
of it it's.
(33:18):
It's.
People are pushing theboundaries here.
They're going outside of whatwould be normal fishing grounds
into areas where vhf coveragecoverage is limited, if not
non-existent no cell phonecoverage.
So things like e-perbs, be itvessel e-perbs or personal
e-perbs, are now mandatory.
That that's a minimumrequirement for entering one of
our tournaments.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
And how was it on the ground for you, coming down
from Whakatane with the check,to say, hey look, we've been all
affected by this ourselves.
And how was it there inGisborne when?
Speaker 4 (33:48):
you turned up.
There was family members therewho were very emotional about
what had been taking place, whatwe were doing to offer our
support.
It was great to be able tooffer what we could.
There's very little else youcan do with it and there's not
much else we can offer exceptfor assisting those families
through what's a horrible timeand doing what the rest of our
(34:09):
members were happy to putforward, which was some cash to
help them survive and getthrough that horrible time.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
And, I think, anyone listening to this podcast.
All we're hoping for is takinga few moments to think about
when it does go bad and what youcan do to make sure you do come
home safe.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
That's right.
That's where the use of anEPIRB or a personal locator
beacon is absolutely essential,that the opportunity to get
rescued in any mishap at sea ismuch, greatly increased by that.
Just that simple bit oftechnology.
You'll get spotted, there willbe a helicopter come looking for
you.
Your chance of survival aremuch, much greater.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Basic technology, what's available to us all now
seems to be the key, I feel howdoes it compare to other rescues
you've been involved in, andare there lessons we can learn
from this, from from what coastguard experienced on that day?
I?
Speaker 3 (35:03):
think for me there was a couple.
I mean, look, I'd had I've beenin similar, not as extreme as
that, but going that way wherewe chased the boat from the
middle of hawk bay all the wayto mahi.
God help us before we could getthe people off it.
Um, I think there's a couple ofthings and, putting aside the
life jackets, comms, I meanwe've got four radios on board
(35:24):
the boat state and radio commswith people on the shore, that's
RCCNZ plus our own incidentmanagement team.
But I think, more importantly,every half an hour, religiously,
and we've got what we call asituation report and our boat's
tracked so I don't have to tellpeople where we are.
But we know where we are.
(35:45):
We know how much fuel we'reburning currently.
We know how much fuel we'veused.
We know I go around the crew,are you okay?
Are you okay?
Go around the crew, check theboat.
Is the boat going fine?
No issues, engine's runningperfectly normal.
We've got plenty of fuel.
And like, not on this job,because I knew we had plenty of
range, but on other jobs I havesat there and calculated how
(36:09):
much range I've got left.
You know, can I get back home?
And stuff like that.
Yes, I have always managed toget home.
But it's that sit rep, and Ithink it's not something that
most fishermen would do.
I think it's kind of like let'shead out tonight or tomorrow,
go for a fish.
You had enough, I've had enough, we'll go back home.
You know, with the bin is full,but we're religiously every
(36:31):
half hour.
What's our situation?
Are we still safe?
Is it getting more challengingand ways out.
So we had mentally identifiedlook, if it got really bad, can
we tuck somewhere into Mahia?
You know where can we go?
Because we're the same aseverybody else, from Gizzy,
basically, once you leave theharbour, that's it.
(36:53):
There's no safe haven, really,yeah, but we mentally think, you
know, could we tuck into Mahiasomewhere?
I'd spoken to some of thepolice in Mahia and said what's
it like there?
What are the conditions?
So I had a picture of what wasthere, so I had an escape route
if necessary.
Wouldn't have been comfortable.
But yeah, and I mean we've donetows from 30 or 40 miles
(37:15):
offshore and look, we see somequite small.
You know, I've been out thereand I've towed somebody back
that's broken down or whatever.
And you look around and youthink, really, brother, you're
going this far offshore with oneout.
You know a single outboard andI'm thinking, yeah, but I think
you're right, you hit part of itand that is we have a team.
So whenever we're doing a job,we've either got police, we've
(37:39):
got rccnz, we've got our ownincident management team, so
we've got an infrastructure thatis supporting us.
And I think that if smallerrecreational boats go, let's
build that network within oneanother.
Look, and if some of your matesare going home, you know,
sometimes the best thing is ifthey're questioning it, it's
kind of like, take that secondstep.
(38:00):
And we've got what we call aSAP process, and I'm also a
trainer, so I really beat thisinto people Stop, assess, plan
and then do something.
I've got to admit, mike, I'mnot a fisherman, but we've got
crew that are mad, keen fishersand other people that I know and
you can sort of see and it'slike I understand the passion,
(38:24):
but sometimes you've got to beable to stop and make that hard
call.
We always wear our PFDs but,equally importantly, inside each
of our crew's PFD we'veattached a PLB personal locator
beacon and then we have a smallflashing light, just a normal
whistle and stuff like that.
So the light is an extra.
(38:45):
So if you end up in the waterat night there's a little flashy
flash, but the PLB is, if youlike, the real lifesaver.
So that's attached.
The reason I mention that islook, we attended a boat that
overturned here and the guys,they had an EPIRB on board.
The boat went over so quicklyit had no time to grab it.
(39:06):
But if the PLB had either beenin their pocket or on themselves
, bingo.
Similarly, since that was amonth ago, literally two or
three weeks ago, we attended ayacht fire where the guy did
have a plb on him and we werealert.
Rccz was alerted literallywithin minutes.
So I personally think if youwear your life jacket, but,
(39:29):
equally importantly, personal,located beacons, I mean those,
those cheapest chips these daysreally, you know, you know 300,
400 bucks.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Yeah, if you're filling up the gas to go chase
these fish.
That kind of cost for a PLB isreally nothing and everyone on
board should have one right.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
The reason for everybody having their own PLB
is.
It's really easy to getseparated in the water and you
know, I mean if you're on yourown but the skipper's got the
PLB not particularly useful foryou.
So every crew member has a PLB.
Coast Guard in association withyou, guys are going to run some
(40:09):
seminars around the country.
So absolutely, if they're beingheld in your area, god's sake,
turn up.
I would say, because there'snothing beats sharing
experiences.
So I think that would have tobe a major plus.
Look, I'm not going to go inabout wearing life jackets and
stuff like that, because I thinkthat should be common sense and
(40:31):
having a PLB.
But I think if there was onething or a couple of things is
do what we do, and that's itlike stop, assess, plan.
But I think if there was onething or a couple of things is
do what we do, and that's itlike stop, assess, plan.
And it's like and as I say tomy crew, is look, stop, assess,
plan is not an excuse for athree-day hooey.
Okay, it is not beating thesubject to death.
(40:56):
It's like you know, if you'redoing something at home and it's
something big, what's the firstthing you do?
Sort of like take a deep breaththen get into it.
It's that kind of thing.
So stop and think about it andalso understand what your boat
can and can't do.
So I know, on CK, full noise, Iburn 97 litres an hour.
I know, at cruise, I burn 80litres an hour per side.
(41:17):
Know, at cruise, I burn 80litres an hour per side.
I know what the boat can do.
I know what my range is.
I know all of those kinds ofthings.
I know when my next service isdue.
I know what my gear is aboutand look, look after your gear,
but also engage that thingthat's between your ears and you
mentioned it as like there'salways fishing tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
A lot of our listeners would have done a
toolbox talk on a site orsomething like that.
So same thing, right?
Speaker 3 (41:45):
It's exactly the same .
And I say that to new people atCoast Guard.
I say treat this like aworkplace.
No, we're a bit more excitingthan the workplace.
But you know, and it's likewhen you go, health and safety
does not go out the door, it isnot.
Arguably, it is now morecritical.
You ain't going to walk home Ifyour boat breaks down.
(42:06):
You ain't walking home.
So do think about safety and itdoesn't have to be boring and
all the rest of it, but justthat short, sharp stuff.
And, as I said, look, wedebrief everything.
We debrief after training andwe go around the room and
there's only two questions youhave to answer what went well?
What could we improve?
(42:27):
That's a little bit differentto sort of like the standard.
You know two forms ofcommunication and all the rest
of it.
I would argue the mostimportant piece of equipment is
between your ears and engagingit.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
The funny thing is we do this when we're fishing a
lot.
We're like, oh, what were theconditions?
Like I caught fish on this day.
We analyze everything the wind,the swell, the tide.
We don't put that in a safetylens.
Sometimes it's all about how dowe get the fish to bite under
those conditions.
But maybe we should just, youknow, stop like you said and
(43:00):
think about how is the safetyimpaired with those conditions
as well, not just where are thefish going to be?
Speaker 3 (43:05):
Yeah, and I think it's real simple and it's not a
big deal.
I mean, you know it's like,yeah, and a lot of that stuff
can be done.
While you're cruising out, youknow you're still 200 metres
ashore, the boat's idling away,blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, just stay in touch withthe crew.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
I think in recent years well maybe even in the
last decade or so from a sportfishing perspective in
particular, chasing thesepelagic fish like marlin and
tuna the boats used to be a lotlarger, like launchers and
skippered by professional crewthat you would charter to go out
and get.
Nowadays we'll get a bunch ofguys who are tradies or mates or
(43:42):
whatever in a small aluminiumcraft and they're targeting the
same fish.
I think we need to be wary ofthat shift in the last decade or
so from large boats skipperedby professional crew to everyday
Kiwis trying to get a bit ofthe action themselves on their
own boat and it's totallyunderstandable.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
I mean it's like everything is becoming much more
, you know, like much more inthe reach of normal Kiwis, if I
can use that term, and it'sreally.
I mean it's really exciting.
You know, they see the picturein the paper somebody caught the
big fish and it's like that'sreally cool.
I mean, how hard can it be?
You know?
I mean because most of the timethey go out in good weather
(44:25):
they don't understand whathappens when it turns sand, how
bad it can really get.
And, as I said, you know, we'reboth arse and gizzy.
I mean there are no islands totuck in behind.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
You're in the open ocean and these guys were very
seasoned fishermen.
You know they weren't doingtheir first time fishing.
They'd been fishing plenty oftimes before and this one caught
them out, you know.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
And I mean, and that's why and I'm always really
, really careful I don't knowthe guys, but from all accounts
I'm highly experienced but youknow, I've been at sea and it's
like sometimes, as I said before, shit happens and it's like a
wave or something like that, andit's almost like it doesn't
matter how experienced you are,something happens and it can
(45:11):
have a really sad outcome.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
Finally, Roger, what's changed at Gisborne
Tadapuri Club since thisincident?
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Yes, a huge amount by a heck of a lot of guys.
Now it basically was early onin our bluefin tuna season.
It really rocked everybody tothe degree that very few people
went bluefin tuna fishing.
After that we all had a realgood look at our safety
equipment and our systems onboard.
(45:39):
Unfortunately, gisborne well,it is a very exposed area.
Out off Gisborne We've got noislands, nothing.
Our Coast Guard did used to runskids during the weekends but
they found they weren't gettingthe support.
They didn't have the radiooperators and when they did
schedule someone on thereweren't enough nice days in the
weekend to basically warrantsomeone sitting down there, so
(46:02):
they dropped that.
So we didn't have an actualcoast guard manning a radio in
gisborne.
We did have a channel which wastransferred to tower.
I think it is where you couldcall up and put in a trip report
, but it was relatively unusedby all the members.
It was a huge wake-up call anda lot more people use that now.
(46:24):
As I mentioned, we all wentthrough our safety gear.
The club did actually organisea safety day and a safety
evening.
We got suppliers of safetyequipment to come to the club
display all their latest gearthat they had, which that was a
great success, and a lot ofpeople came through that during
the day and then in the eveningwe had spokesmen from Coast
(46:46):
Guard, hutch Wilco andMetService.
Chris Bandolino actually camealong and spoke to us, which was
very educational about how theyweather forecast and what they
do, because the one thing thatcame out of it hugely was how
come that forecast was so wrongon that particular day and, yeah
, that's something that we can'treally understand.
(47:09):
I still can't understand tothis day how come they got it so
wrong.
But yeah, it's just one ofthose things.
Another thing that came out ofit very clearly for me was we've
got all these apps that we lookat for the forecast and I
usually go through windy, swellmap and boy weather, but I
actually just go on the freeones, like windy, for instance,
(47:30):
is only updated every 12 hours.
If you go into the free app andjust going back to the day that
we were out there, one of myother crew members had windy,
but they had the paidsubscription.
Now that gets updated everythree hours and they actually
looked at the update just beforewe decided to pull the pin and
the updated forecast on windywas showing very similar to what
(47:53):
we actually had up near 20 andit had gone from the one at five
knots from sort of first thingin the morning and was showing
and that sort of made it oh well, okay, this isn't going to drop
off, this is what we're getting, so let's pull the pin and go
home.
So one of the things I didimmediately was subscribe to
windy to get the update, becausewhen I went back on windy I
still had the five knot forecastsitting there and yeah, that
(48:16):
was a real learning curve for alot of people, but it really
opened our eyes, and even myself.
You know, you go and test yourEPIRB.
Yes, the light comes on and itflashes, but I didn't look at
the date and the actual date hadexpired on it.
On my EPIRB we didn't have PLBsat that stage.
So the actual suppliers and thelocal retailers put on some
(48:40):
very, very good packages onEPIRBs, plbs, inflatable life
jackets, basically all the thing, and I think the whole country
basically got on board withthose specials and they all sold
out of all that gear.
I've now put AIS on my boat and, yeah, so well from safety
point of view.
That's probably the one goodthing that has come out of it,
(49:03):
if you can say, is that it madeeveryone conscious to have a
real good look at their gear andtheir systems, their debriefs
and things they do before theygo fishing.
And everyone you know, even themost experienced guys, said, hey
, it's given me a real wake upand yeah, I do things
differently now.
The other big thing that'sreally come out of it now is
(49:24):
buddy boating, and we inhindsight should have probably
kept in touch the three boats alot more than we did, knowing
that conditions weren't thegreatest, and found out exactly
what plans were of each otherand what we were doing.
But I think as fishermen andgame fishermen, we can all be a
little bit secretive at times.
(49:44):
We don't want to give away toomuch and when we got a hot find,
a hot bite or something, wewant to have that to ourselves
for for a while.
So we don't tend to shareinformation as much as we should
.
But definitely now you know ifI'm going and I know there's
other boats out there and on thewater I'm definitely keeping in
touch with what we're doing,what our plans are, you know,
(50:06):
making sure that we're allhopefully come back safe.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
The one thing I'm thinking about is the VHF black
spots and the mobile black spotsthat are in your backyard.
There there's been a bit of apush to get Rocket Lab to put
some extended coverage, and whatare your thoughts on that?
Will that help alleviate someof the issues around Gisbert?
Speaker 2 (50:29):
Yes, most definitely down the area we're in.
It is marginal for cell phoneand also for VHF, and that was
probably something that struckat the time with us when we were
out there.
You know, hey, are they just inone of those marginal areas and
they're outside of our VHFchannel 60, which is the local
(50:51):
channel that we actually all useout of Gisborne, and also in
the area where they don't getcell phone coverage.
Um, the drive is obviously forthose sites to be put in.
Rocket lab are out at the endof my year and it's a perfect
site for something to be donethere and there is quite a cost
involved in putting those in androcket lab have basically said,
(51:15):
hey, they're happy to supportwith giving an area out there
where they can be located, butthere would need to be some
funding found to actually put,especially a cell site or
whatever was going to go inthere in place.
There's so many ifs and buts inthis incident and, as I
mentioned in hindsight, hey, weall wish on the day we'd done
(51:37):
things differently and you know,it's just one of those things
that will lead us.
We all could have done thingsdifferently and should have done
things differently.
But you don't know at the timeand you can only look back at it
and hopefully learn from it.
Speaker 1 (51:51):
Hayden Johnson talking about Whakatane.
Just, they were getting readyfor their bluefin tournament
when this happened and you knowit became very solemn at their
club and that's why they decidedto, you know, put the buckets
around and raise some money foryou guys yeah, and that was
awesome from their point of view.
Speaker 2 (52:07):
they got twenty thousand dollars together for us
and they came over andpresented us with that and there
were a few of the boats fromhere.
It actually intended to goaround and fish that tuna
bluefin tuna contest that theywere running.
As it was, the sea conditionswas never going to allow us to
get around the cape to get thereanyway.
So, um, that put pay to it, butthe event meant that we weren't
(52:29):
going anywhere near the sea forfor a time.
I know my crew, uh, took quitea few months before they were
actually keen to get back on thewater and felt comfortable with
doing it Myself also.
It has rocked a lot of us inGisborne and it's rocked me too.
I regularly think about it.
(52:50):
To be quite honest, this newseason coming up, bluefin season
coming up, sort of stillpondering whether we should be
doing a bluefin sweepstakecontest again or not.
And, yeah, we've got acommittee meeting on Monday and
that will be discussed and we'llmake a decision on whether to
or whether we're not going to.
(53:10):
Yeah, well, it was a terribleyear last year, you know, there
was obviously the angler washedor fell overboard, that drowned
off Whakatane also, and then thethree down here.
I just hope it has openedeveryone's eyes and this bluefin
fishery is going to beobviously treated a little bit
different this coming winter andwe don't have any fatalities
(53:32):
like we had last season.
Speaker 1 (53:33):
Yeah, so Coast Guard and New Zealandaland sport
fishing council are runningeight courses around the country
for bluefin tuna, just aroundsafety.
There's a bit of informationaround how to catch them, but
there will definitely be a largesafety component, like the bar
crossing seminars that coastguard ran.
So this is all spurred off fromwhat happened in gisborne and
you know so there is a bit ofsilver lining out of those dark
(53:56):
clouds that it's actually putorganisations into action and
said, hey, we need to do betterand educate more people just
about the risks, because thoseswells five metre swells, 40
knot winds I just couldn'tquickly and that was sort of
when the next day when it wentround to Southerly and we did
(54:20):
have those 40-knot winds andthose big swells.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
Yeah, I'm glad we weren't out there, to be quite
honest.
Yeah, it's forecasting is a bigone, that you know.
I just hope we can get thatbetter too, because that's a big
one that we all rely on.
Speaker 1 (54:36):
And when it's wrong, unfortunately, you have
incidents like this and yeah,yeah that concludes this episode
of the new zealand sportfishing council pod and real
podcast.
Thank you to maritime newzealand and the safer boating
forum for funding this episode.
Thank you,
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