\u201cWe were bouncing through waves … we spent a lot of time in the air as you drive up a wave and come crashing down the other side,\u201d Pearson said.<\/p>\n
Visibility was limited. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe [couldn\u2019t] see the boat we were looking for because they could be on the other side of a wave,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the time, the land was disappearing behind the waves, so you can\u2019t see where you\u2019re going, you have to rely on your electronics.\u201d <\/p>\n
The conditions were so challenging that they passed the yacht without seeing it. <\/p>\n
The Coastguard crew members, once alerted by their on-shore team, turned around and found the yacht halfway between Leigh and Mangawhai about 7.30pm. <\/p>\n
The yachtie on board, who spoke to the Advocate under the condition of anonymity, said it was \u201cinstant relief\u201d when they saw the Coastguard. <\/p>\n
The yacht, bought in the Bay of Islands days before, had no sails up when Pearson\u2019s team arrived. <\/p>\n
The boom had broken, the two-strong crew had lost all the lines to their headsail, and for a time, the engine had not been working. <\/p>\n
They had a fuel explosion at some point, and everything was covered in fuel. <\/p>\n
\u201cI have no idea where from, but it just was like a couple of litres. It was so fast,\u201d the yachtie said.<\/p>\n
The yachtie and their inexperienced companion were in a situation that \u201ccouldn\u2019t be any worse\u201d.<\/p>\n
They had put on several life jackets and had thrown empty jerry cans in the cockpit, in case they went overboard and needed something to hold on to. <\/p>\n
They had managed to get the engine working again once rescue arrived. They then headed back north, but struggled without a headsail. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe were just at the mercy of the ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI told [coastguard] over the radio, I was like, \u2018Hey, I\u2019m going to go up the front. Keep an eye on me, and if I fall overboard, please come and get me\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n
Pearson said it was clear heading back to Kawau would be too rough in such conditions. <\/p>\n
He said if it wasn\u2019t for the engine being back up and running, he believed they would have been on the rocks. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we would be collecting bodies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were saying that they were about 30 minutes away from abandoning ship,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The Kawau crew arrived about 15 minutes after Mangawhai and checked that everything had gone to plan before turning back again. <\/p>\n
Once the headsail was fixed, the yacht started its long slog back to Whang\u0101rei with Coastguard Mangawhai\u2019s support. <\/p>\n
Pearson said his main concern was the yachties\u2019 wellbeing. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019d been out there all day, they were now tired, it was going to get dark, they were going to be out there for another six, seven hours. And so we decided to just follow them … shadow them all the way to Whang\u0101rei.\u201d <\/p>\n
The crew took turns speaking to them every 15 minutes, giving words of encouragement and tips on steering. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou could hear in the radio conversation in their voice, the anxiety levels were quite high,\u201d Pearson said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe know they\u2019re fatigued, they\u2019re unable to make good decisions … we just started to take some of those decisions off them so that they could just concentrate on keeping the boat going.\u201d <\/p>\n
They escorted the boat to Marsden Cove, bypassing Mangawhai because of concerns the yacht\u2019s keel would be a problem over the shallow bar. <\/p>\n
It was slow-moving, and Pearson said they did not get to Marsden Cove marina until after midnight. <\/p>\n
Mangawhai Coastguard skipper Roy Pearson has told of the rescue in challenging conditions. Photo \/ Coastguard<\/p>\n
\u201cEven sailing across oceans and around the world, I\u2019ve very rarely come across conditions like that.\u201d <\/p>\n
To get the pair and their boat together in the same place was a \u201cwin-win scenario.\u201d <\/p>\n
Pearson believed the boat would have made reached its destination had it not suffered broken gear. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, [the captain] was 90% of the way there when things started to go wrong, and I think [they] showed incredible wisdom in going, \u2018Things are going wrong, I need some help now\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n
The yachtie said they were \u201cridiculously grateful\u201d for Coastguard. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve got to be feeling pretty proud of themselves.\u201d <\/p>\n
Brodie Stone covers crime and emergency for the Northern Advocate. She has spent most of her life in Whang\u0101rei and is passionate about delving into issues that matter to Northlanders and beyond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe were bouncing through waves … we spent a lot of time in the air as you drive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3221,38602,11158,35631,6144,8532,32878,12513,13994,9832,78,11692,111,43,139,1067,69,8527,173653,312,23432,76350,80308,8229,12628,6730,16506],"class_list":{"0":"post-321469","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-battling","9":"tag-boats","10":"tag-bodies","11":"tag-coastguard","12":"tag-collecting","13":"tag-ended","14":"tag-engine","15":"tag-failed","16":"tag-feared","17":"tag-helped","18":"tag-in","19":"tag-nearly","20":"tag-new-zealand","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-newzealand","23":"tag-northland","24":"tag-nz","25":"tag-rescue","26":"tag-restarted","27":"tag-says","28":"tag-seas","29":"tag-skipper","30":"tag-stricken","31":"tag-they","32":"tag-tragedy","33":"tag-would","34":"tag-yacht"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}