Waves were ‘over our heads’
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 yesterday.
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.
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 autopilot 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.
‘‘I’d like to think we can get the fish off, but everyone is safe, 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.