Fishing boat Kutere runs aground on Greymouth beach after mayday call
Monday, 29 May 2017
A West Coast fisherman says it was only luck the crew escaped with their lives when their fishing boat ran aground on a Greymouth beach.
The Kutere issued a mayday call as the 16-metre, 29-tonne vessel crossed the treacherous Greymouth channel – it appears on autopilot – about 1.45am on Monday.
Crewman Matthew Fisher was asleep in a berth underneath and woke to the sound of breaking waves.
'Then [the noise] stopped and I braced for the next one,' the Greymouth man said.
**READ MORE:
* Capsized fisherman failed to wear life jacket**
As Fisher climbed onto the deck, he saw his son, Adin, in the wheelhouse helping the skipper, Les Horncastle, who, he believes, fell asleep at the helm.
'He [Adin] had got up for a leak just seconds before it happened,' Fisher said.
'He's probably nodded off for 10 or 15 minutes and that is all it takes. The auto-pilot was set for [Greymouth port].
'The only thing I can think of is it's his [cancer] medication. I've never had a fear of going to sleep with him at the wheel. If I thought for a minute that that was going to happen, I wouldn't have gone to sleep.'
Fisher said the boat was in the breakers off Cobden Beach when he and his son got the liferaft into the water. They then helped Horncastle from the wheelhouse to the raft.
'It was over our heads,' Fisher said, pointing to breaking waves.
'We were more worried about the skipper. We got him in and my son jumped in the life raft, and then he jumped out and swam a couple of metres and he was up the beach. I did the same and we pulled the life raft in and Les got out.'
The three men were safe, but cold and shaken, police said. Paramedics treated them at the scene.
Fisher said he had worked on fishing vessels with Horncastle for 20 years. Horncastle listed the Kutere, built in 1970, for sale through a ship broking company in March.
'He's real responsible. It's just an accident,' Fisher said.
West Coast Regional Council chief executive Mike Meehan said the council was speaking with an insurer and the boat owner about how it would be salvaged. He said the main priority had been to get fuel off the boat before high tide at 1.30pm.
The crew fished for Ling for the past week and decided to return to Greymouth on their seventh day as the 'fishing hadn't been good enough to justify' staying out with a forecast of 30-knot winds and a three-metre swell, Fisher said.
'We've got about $10,000 worth of fish in it,' Fisher said.
'I'd like to think we can get the fish off, but everyone is all right so that's the main thing.
'It's a good ship. It's sad actually, looking at it like this.'
Maritime New Zealand said it was making preliminary investigations into the cause of the beaching.
The Greymouth River bar is notoriously dangerous for ships.
INCIDENTS ON THE GREYMOUTH BAR
- 2016: A kayaker got into trouble on the sandbar and was thrown around by the waves. Three men threw a lifebuoy into the water and dragged him in. His struggle was captured on video.
- 2013: Fishing boat Lady Anna capsized when it hit the bar, claiming the life of Nicholas Brett Eklund.
- 2011: Two Riverton skippers were issued with improvement notices by Maritime NZ for crossing the bar when a flashing blue light at the breakwater warned them the bar was too dangerous to cross.
- 2000: Two men died when Te Anau fishing boat Koromiko rolled.
-1867: Bruce Bay in South Westland, was named after a paddle steamer called Bruce that brought gold miners from northern ports. The steamer was wrecked on the bar in 1867.