Crew saved as boat founders

Press, 13 December 1982, Page 1

Crew saved as boat founders

PA Wellington Sixteen Taiwanese fishermen were plucked from the sea in a dramatic rescue off Wellington’s Ohiro Bay yesterday morning after their boat Yung Pen foundered on rocks close to shore. No lives were lost from the vessel. One crew member was admitted to hospital with hypothermia.. He was later discharged. The attempt to get' the men off the. squid boat almost ended in tragedy as the vessel, which was lodged upright on rocks in choppy water about 8 a.m. when the police arrived, began to heel over after only six men had been taken off by helicopter. “One man then leapt into the water,” said the rescue co-ordinator, Senior-Sergeant Peter Roose, “but' we had local fishermen in the water with dinghies and they managed to. haul him out. “Then the fishing boat started to turn.” Senior-Sergeant Roose said that the helicopter rescued two more men before the boat went right over just after 9. a.m. "The second one had. to grab the skids of the ’copter as it hovered almost touching the boat and he was taken off like that,” he said. "The remaining men slid off the hull and were picked up by the dinghies.” Senior-Sergeant Roose paid tribute to the help given by fishermen from nearby Island Bay, and Ohiro Bay residents who took their dinghies out to rescue, the seamen and who also helped on shore. The bay is just. outside Wellington Habour on the rugged south coast overlooking Cook Strait. A local resident, Mr Nevill Robinson, said that he had seen the lights of the squid boat close inshore in the bay about 1.30 a.m. and had assumed the vessel was moored waiting to enter Wellington Harbour at daybreak. The wind changed from a northerly to the south during the night, he said.

Senior-Sergeant Roose said that there had been several reports that the. boat had been offshore earlier in the morning. "But we have established no reason yet for her going on the rocks," he said. None of the men spoke English which had made it difficult to find out what had happened, he said. . The sea and foreshore of Ohiro Bay were discoloured with oil from the boat and debris, ranging from fish crates and diesel drums to fishermen’s sandals, was dotted about the rocks. The smell of diesel oil hung across the bay and one resident predicted that it could take weeks for the spillage to clear. The Superintendent of Mercantile Marine, Mr David Young, also the Receiver of Wrecks, said that he would organise a confidential preliminary inquiry today into the grounding of the Yung Pen. “I have been down to see the site and I have spoken to all the crew through an interpreter,”.he said. It was not yet clear why the boat had gone aground. The preliminary inquiry would make a recommendation to the Minister of Transport as to whether a formal inquiry should be mounted, said Mr Young. “I have not yet been told officially that the boat is a wreck,” he said. The insurance company had to see the boat, one of several chartered in a joint venture by Trade Span, NZ, Ltd, and decide whether, she was salvable, Mr Young said. . “The police will keep a vigil over the boat all day to make sure nothing disappears from the site.” The ship’s papers had been taken off safely, he said. The Yung Pen was one of several boats entering Wellington to be licensed for joint-venture fishing. Mr Young said he was still trying to find out what sort of oil was involved in the spillage and how much the boat was carrying.