The surviving deckhand who was working on board the Enchanter when it sank killing five men has described the moment the fatal wave struck.
Kobe O’Neill continued giving evidence this morning at the Whangārei District Court in the trial of skipper Lance Goodhew who is charged with breaching the Health and Safety Work Act.
O’Neill told the court: "It was like being hit by a train."
Maritime New Zealand had alleged Goodhew failed to take reasonable care and, in doing so, exposed passengers to a risk of death or serious injury.
Goodhew was defending the charges against him.
Passengers Mark Sanders, Richard Bright, Mike Lovett, Geoff Allen and Mark Walker died after the boat they had chartered was struck by a rogue wave near North Cape at the tip of the North Island in March 2022. It was meant to be a "trip of a lifetime" for the group.
O’Neill, who was 20 at the time of the accident, said on the day the weather had been improving all afternoon. He’d gone to prepare dinner in the galley when the wave hit.
He said he was alerted to the impact by a "sudden thud of the wave and being thrown over".
He said he wasn’t initially able to get off the boat, but the roof came off and which allowed him to escape.
O’Neill and other survivors used a piece of the fly-bridge as a form of flotation. They played a game of I-spy while waiting in the water to keep their minds off what was going on.
Eventually, he said he told the other survivors: "I-spy with my little eye something beginning with 'H'." It was an 'H' for helicopter.
He recalled one man saying: "You better not be f***ing joking." He wasn’t.
'Like a grenade going off'
One passenger on the Enchanter said the moment they were hit by a rogue wave was "like a grenade going off" saying, “it blew the boat to bits”.
Jayde Cook and Peter Shay Ward (known as Shay) were on the hull of the boat for several hours after the wave capsized the boat.
"Basically, [it was] like a grenade going off. Everything happening really quick — a lot of green water, a lot of bubbles. Next thing you know, we were on the surface,” Cook told the court.
Deckhand O’Neill, skipper Goodhew and others clung to the wheel board. They were initially floating close to the pair on the hull, but as darkness came, they drifted about 1km apart. It wasn’t until Cook saw the rescue chopper hovering, that they saw the hull and realised where the others were.
He said they watched the chopper pick up the pair and leave, it was about 50 minutes before the helicopter came back for them.
Ward said he suffered injuries including broken ribs and was bleeding in the water. Miraculously, Cook had no injuries.
Shay Ward had worked as commercial fishermen in Australia and the South Island and had been to Three Kings before. He agreed to go on the fishing trip with the others a year earlier with the prospect of catching kingfish as the main attraction.
While being questioned by Goodhew’s lawyer, Ward admitted he was impressed with the way Goodhew handled the boat and with the accuracy of his weather predictions.
The men said Goodhew had regularly briefed them on the weather conditions and gave them options and they made decisions as a group.
The judge-alone trial is set down for three weeks, during which the court would hear evidence from more of the survivors.
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