It went straight for Bill’
missing person was ever found’’.
Two days after Black disappeared an object was spotted wedged between the rocks.
‘‘I pulled it out, and found it to be a surf lifesaving belt’’, the man told police. separating him from the line.
The belt, which was tied tightly around his waist, has come off as the ‘‘shark or sharks feasted on Bill.’’ ‘‘We didn’t get any of Bill back.’’ He described Black as a ‘‘top guy’’. ‘‘He was a big guy, quiet and amiable’’.
The memory of the attack has never quite left Brown.
‘‘It is in the back of your mind all the time.
‘‘I still do a bit of hunting and diving and am still afraid of what I can’t see.’’
He considered himself fortunate the shark did not attack him.
The championship race had been the first time Bill had ever looked likely to beat him.
‘‘I was very lucky and he was very unlucky.’’ killed by a shark was ‘‘terrible’’. ‘‘It is hard to describe really. ‘‘To be honest the sharks live in the sea, it is their territory isn’t it?’’
No trace of her brother’s body was ever found – that was a double blow for her family, particularly her father.
‘‘It broke my father’s heart, he didn’t live long after that.’’
She returned to New Zealand a year later and recalled her stepmother taking a newspaper clipping of the tragedy and saying, ‘‘let’s burn those while your father is out’’.
Her brother had turned 21 in the months before the attack, was the captain of the St Kilda Surf Club and was studying at Massey University.
‘‘He was a happy fellow, he had his future ahead of him.’’
Every time she heard of a shark attack, the memory of her brother and how his death impacted her family came flooding back. ‘‘It absolutely shocks.’’ Last year she received ‘‘out of the blue’’ a letter and photo of Bill from a former girlfriend.
Card returned to Dunedin when a plaque funded by shark attack survivor Barry Watkins was unveiled at St Clair in 2011 and helped provide closure for her family.
‘‘The fact his body was never found . . . it took me actually those 40 years to get over it.’’