Swimmer tries to tow boat to shore

Sitting in an inflatable boat about

500 metres from shore with no petrol, Hayden Rabel tied a rope to himself and jumped into the sea wearing only his underwear and started to swim.

Rabel and two of his friends set out in a small inflatable rigid boat on Sunday to have a look at the coastline near Sumner.

The group filled the motor prior to departure, leaving extra petrol in the car.

‘‘We thought it was a nice day, and we had the oars, if we ran out [of petrol] we’d just paddle back,’’ Rabel told Stuff on Monday.

The trio, none of whom were wearing life jackets, were about

1km from shore when they ran out of petrol.

‘‘We were paddling for a while and it was quite a nice day, so we thought it would be funny for me to swim for a while,’’ Rabel said.

‘‘I used to be a surf lifeguard, so I’m pretty comfortable in the water.

‘‘We were close enough to shore that if anything happened I

Hayden Rabel

could’ve dragged them in.’’

The two others paddled as Rabel swam. They were about 100 metres off Boulder Bay, near Godley Head when they were greeted by the Sumner Lifeboat crew who spoke with them as they got to shore at Taylor’s Mistake beach.

Rabel said the decision not to wear life jackets was ‘‘a mess-up’’.

‘‘I’m pretty embarrassed about that, definitely made an error there, and we’ve got some now.’’

Sumner Lifeboat coxswain Blair Quane said the incident was a ‘‘prime example’’ of what not to do. ‘‘If you go on any watercraft you should have life jackets,’’ he said.

‘‘When I spoke to them they said ‘oh we weren’t planning on going very far’ but I mean that’s like saying I’m only going down to the shops, so I won’t wear my seatbelt, it’s ridiculous in this day and age.’’

He said another ‘‘disappointing’’ aspect was that the trio had set off for a trip without checking they had adequate fuel.

‘‘It beggars belief that they could get in that situation . . . a cup full of fuel would have got them there [to Boulders Bay] and back, they just had no fuel at all.

‘‘They were very lucky that nothing changed in terms of weather and swells... because they would’ve been struggling.’’

According to MetService, the air temperature in Christchurch at the time of the rescue was about 9 degrees Celsius. The water temperature around Canterbury is about 12C.

‘‘It was quite a nice day, so we thought it would be funny for me to swim for a while.’’