The president of a Gisborne fishing club says he’s “broken” after the bodies of three missing fishermen were found on the shore of Māhia.
Police said on Wednesday morning that while formal identification was under way, the bodies were thought to be of the trio who were reported missing on Monday.
We understand one of the missing fishermen is Elwood Higgins.
Gisborne Tatapouri Sports Fishing Club president Roger Faber told BNZ he was about to go live for an interview on TV on Wednesday morning when he was informed the bodies had been found.
Elwood Higgins, thought to be one of the three fishermen who were reported missing on Monday.
“I was just broken, for whānau, for the friends, for the whole community. These guys are three local guys that are involved in the community, sporting groups, hunting groups, clubs – they’re part of our club.”
It had been a whirlwind wait since the men went missing on Monday, he said.
Two of the men were spotted alive in the water by a container ship on Tuesday afternoon, which had raised hopes. “That was just a miracle and we thought heck this is awesome, hopefully they can find the third one,” he said.
“And then just going through the afternoon and slowly seeing things get worse as the African Tiger logging ship drifted away from them and lost them again and then the weather got worse.
“[The] Napier Coast Guard got two-thirds of the way down to them and had to turn back because of the weather and we saw the helicopter and the planes leaving the search area. Our hearts all sunk again.”
Faber said it was hoped the men would have managed to get into the life raft that had been dropped to them and that they were going to be found on Wednesday morning.
“To wake up and get this news… absolutely gut-wrenching.”
BNZ understands Billy Boy was the boat the men went out in on Monday./ SUPPLIED
The three men were club members and “regular fishers”.
Faber spoke of seeing the men on Monday morning before the three boats headed out.
“We talked first thing in the morning when we sort of departed, and we talked about our plans for the day and what we were going to do.”
The three boats did not leave together, but they kept in communications earlier in the day.
“If we found fish we would’ve told the others where they were.
“We were out chasing bluefin tuna. The weather forecast was for a beautiful day. It was supposed to be under 5 knots of breeze when we got out there we probably had 10 but we sort of thought OK it’s going to get better and better but it didn’t.”
Faber said the winds and swell kept building. About 11am those on his 40ft launch decided “Na, this isn’t nice we’re going home”.
“We spoke to one of the other boats and told them about our decision and they’d actually decided the exactly same thing pretty much at the same time.”
“It was then that we tried to ring the boat that’s missing and tell them… of our intentions, they didn’t answer the radio at that time and we just thought ‘Hey hopefully they’ve just gone in earlier or something like that’… the area we were in is a fair way from Gisborne so it is a little bit marginal cellphone coverage and also radio coverage.”
It was not until they got back to the boat ramp and saw their trailer was still there that they had concerns.
Faber said the group had looked at multiple weather apps and forecasts before making the decision to go fishing.
“It was a Monday so there were limited boats out because a lot of people were going to work. but talking around the club other guys that were there said they looked at the forecast and thought ‘christ we should be going fishing it looks perfect out there on Monday’.”
Gisborne mayor Rehette Stoltz told RNZ the news of three bodies being found was heartbreaking.
“Our community is in mourning,“ she said.
“Everyone is waking up to this news and our community is right behind them.”
Friends and relatives of Higgins posted tributes on social media on Tuesday.
In a Facebook post one relative wrote: “Come on my brother. Breaking into pieces over here listening to this storm kicking in. Make your way home to us and bring your mates home with you too xx”
Another wrote: “Kia Kaha cuz, we are all there with you guys and praying for the safe return of our cousin and his mate.”
With others sending “love and prayers to you all whanau.”
