Rescue boat overturns

Press, 17 November 1981, Page 1

Rescue boat overturns

The Sumner jet rescue lifeboat Aid II was being pounded to pieces on a rocky shore late last evening after a vain search in rough seas for someone who is not even known to be missing.

The two-man crew of the lifeboat managed to reach land after it capsized in Sumner Bay about 8 p.m., and were taken to Christchurch Hospital suffering from exposure. They are Mr D. H. Browne and Mr P. McDonald. Neither was believed to be in a serious condition.

The $12,000 specialised craft was only insured against fire in its own shed

— “because we could not afford the accident at sea premium,” said the secretary of the Sumner Lifeboat Institution, Mr W. J. Baguley. The destruction of the Aid II brought to a head the institution’s long struggle to get repairs made to the slipway for its main vessel, the 10-tonne Rescue 111. The Rescue 111 was launched on its half-col-lapsed slipway last evening, and had to head into Lyttelton.

The Sumner Lifeboat Institution had been alerted about 7.30 p.m. after a youth on a board was reported to be in trouble off Scarborough Head.

“They found two others in difficulties before they even got to that one," said Mr Baguley. The person who had first been reported missing was not found, and the Christchurch police said late last evening that as many as three people could possibly

be still missing off the Sumner Heads. No-one had been reported missing, however, said a police spokesman, and the police search operation had been called off by 11 p.m. The spokesman said there had been a group of about 30 surfing off the heads. He appealed for them to contact Christchurch Central Police. Station so the police could discover the number missing. The Aid II capsized about 200 metres offshore in

Sumner Bay while it was looking for yet another swimmer.

A crowd of about 200 was gathered on the foreshore late last evening, trying to steady the damaged vessel with ropes as it was dashed against the rocks. An attempt to lift the lifeboat ashore by crane will be made at first light today. Mr Baguley said there had been a big north-easterly breaking sea at the time of the rescues.

“What worries me is that we do not have a lifeboat in the area where it is most needed, and we are not likely to for some time,” he said. Sumner lifeboatmen have rescued 131 people in the past 10 years. The fate of the jetboat might have been avoided had heed been taken of repeated warnings by Mr Baguley. Mr Baguley said in September that a death at sea could be on the conscience of the Christchurch City Council because of the poor state of the slipway of the institution's “real” lifeboat, the 10tonne Rescue 111.

Worm infestation in the timbers of the slip meant that Rescue 111 could only be launched within an hour either side of high tide.

“If the lifeboat was needed at night we could do nothing,” said Mr Baguley, who has been on many rescue trips himself.

He warned that it would be too dangerous to send the rescue jet boat out at night or in very rough seas.

A lifeboatman described the seas last evening as the worst he had seen in the area for a long time.

The lifeboat institution wanted to replace with concrete the timbers which had been eaten away by the voracious Teredo worm.

The cost of thejjjbb was estimated at about’’sso,ooo; the council allocated $2500 for the work, but was still considering a report from,, the Ministry of Transport’s" Marine Division.