Timaru couple rescued after ketch sinks off Kaikoura

Press, 27 January 1979, Page 1

Timaru couple rescued after ketch sinks off Kaikoura

Bv LES BLOXHAM

The long-held dream of a young Timaru couple to sail their wooden ketch across the Tasman Sea to Sydney ended with a shuddering crash off the Kaikoura coast early yesterday

morning. CT

The young sailors had only minutes to scramble into a rubber liferaft before their 10m craft Southern Kiwi sank after hitting an unidentified floating object in the predawn darkness.

David Oddie, aged 26, and Wendy Roe, aged 22, were at the mercy of a heavy sea for about 10 hours before they were rescued unharmed.

The drama began just before 5 a.m. Mr Oddie was at the helm and Ms Roe was asleep below deck.

“There was no warning; just a shuddering crash and the sound of water pouring in below,” said Mr Oddie. “The ketch started to heel over almost immediately.” Ms Roe had been awakened by the crash, and by the time she got up on deck the boat was already on its side.

“We knew it was sinking and so we concentrated on getting the liferaft inflated and ready,” she said. When dawn broke two hours after the accident the couple were riding a heavy sea with a strong southerly drift.

Mr Oddie turned on his emergency radio beacon, but apparently it went unheard.

“We saw an aircraft about 10 a.m. We fired a distress flare," said Ms Roe. However, the aircraft continued on its course. Just before 11 a.m. they saw another aircraft and fired two flares in quick succession. Within minutes a Safe Air Bristol freighter was circling them.

Their sighting was relayed to Constable M. R. Young, at Kaikoura, who alerted members of the town’s volunteer lifeboat service.

Most of the crew were just leaving the funeral of the lifeboat’s former custodian, Mr A. Bennett, when the alarm was given. Some went to sea in their best suits. The lifeboat Rescue II took about three hours to plough through the northerly swell to where an R.N.Z.A.F. Devon had taken over from the Bristol freighter as a spotter plane for the orange raft and its two occupants. “We had the canopy up and had no idea that our rescue was so close,” said Ms Roe. “Suddenly we heard a rapping on the canopy and saw the lifeboat. It gave us quite a start, but it was a great sight.” The couple arrived back at Kaikoura at 5.15 p.m.,

more than 12 hours after their ordeal began. Mr Oddie believes that the ketch, which was about 30 years old, struck a whale. He and Ms Roe were the : joint owners of the vessel, which was worth about $20,000 and was insured.

They sailed from Timaru last Friday and made Akaroa their first port of call. The Southern Kiwi (formerly the Kiwi), left Akaroa on Thursday morning for Picton and was to have been prepared there for the crossing to Sydney. Will they try again in a replacement vessel? “No way — absolutely no way am I going to sail again,” said an emphatic Ms Roe.

“There is only one way to Sydney — by air.”