Army mates rescued as boat turns turtle

A group of army mates were left huddling together in choppy water after being thrown from their sinking boat off Kapiti Island. The group, from Linton army base near Palmerston North, were preparing to scuba dive for crayfish about 11am yesterday when their runabout was swamped by waves, flipped and capsized about 200 metres off the island.

Marc Stallard, 20, was already in the water and watched as the boat was hit by a wave and tilted under the weight of another diver preparing to jump in.

"I was next to the boat and saw this wave come in. The next thing the whole thing was full of water and it rolled straight over. The guys had to jump," he said.

Three of the men huddled together in the water for about 20 minutes while Mr Stallard launched a rescue buoy and began swimming toward tiny Tahoramaurea Island, also known as Browns Island, a few hundreds metres from Kapiti Island.

The group were rescued by other soldiers who were snorkelling for paua further along Kapiti Island in army inflatable boats.

Mr Stallard went on an inflatable to a house on nearby Fishermans Island to alert the coastguard.

Some of the men tried to dive down and find the sunken boat, which contained valuable diving and fishing gear, but it had disappeared. They were dropped off on Tahoramaurea Island before being picked up by the coastguard.

Arriving back at shore at Paraparaumu about 1pm yesterday, they were cold and tired but uninjured.

Willy Pomana, 35, who was on board his four-metre fibreglass Haines Hunter as it flipped, said it was lucky the men were all wearing wetsuits and that none of them was hurt.

Although the boat was insured for $7000, he was kicking himself about losing thousands of dollars of diving gear, fishing rods, a waterproof camera and the boat's GPS technology.

"We weren't too worried about being in the water, there were two boats around," he said.

"But my boat's gone. I'm amazed. I've only had it a year and a half and this is the second time I've ever used it."

Sergeant Steve Kendrick said the men had behaved sensibly by launching an emergency location device and staying together in the water and on Tahoramaurea Island to stop anyone from going missing.

Two men, Jack Webber, 49, and Hamish Kronfeld, 35, drowned in 1999 when they tried to swim to shore after their boat sank near Browns Island.