Councillor in shipwreck drama (with pics)

Environment Southland councillor Ali Timms is returning home with a holiday story that will take some beating - of being shipwrecked and clinging to a dinghy in shark-infested waters in Fiji.

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Her rescuer, Maurice Conti, of San Francisco, last night said Ms Timms had barely an hour to live when he spotted her and two others clinging to a deflated dinghy.

Mr Conti (38) heard the mayday call at 11.45pm on Sunday, immediately after the 10m ketch Timella struck a reef in heavy seas near the Beqa Island reef - famous for its tiger sharks.

Ms Timms, fellow crewmate Elizabeth Schoch and captain Cameron Scagle, both of Australia, kept Mr Conti updated on their condition.

"For a couple of hours they thought they could save the boat, but it was taking on too much water."

The decision was made to abandon their boat in favour of a two-man dinghy, with Mr Scagle clinging to the side.

Mr Conti with his wife and two small children, who are sailing around the world in their 16m catamaran Ocealys, plotted a course and headed towards the boat's last known location.

Arriving there at 5.30am, Mr Conti said he was dismayed when he saw no sign of a wreck.

"We were really worried; we saw nothing, no flotsam . . . nothing. We were just about to turn back and we thought we would go for one more look and we spotted a jerry can floating."

Plotting a course from the jerry can, Mr Conti spotted the trio clinging to the deflated dinghy, which had been punctured when the call came to abandon ship.

In "three or five-metre swells", Mr Conti, an experienced rescue diver, found a spot where he could bring his own dinghy in through the reef as his wife manned the catamaran.

The three were huddling together in an effort to keep Ms Timms warm, as she suffered hypothermia after battling rough seas for more than seven hours, he said.

Pulling up in his dinghy, Mr Conti said to the delight of the exhausted survivors, "My name is Maurice. I'm your rescue this morning".

"I heard the line from some movie," he said.

While the two Australians were able to climb on board the boat, Ms Timms needed help and "We put her in the shower, then put her in a sleeping bag to warm her up".

Mr Conti said it was unlikely she would have lasted another hour, considering the state she was in, nor the rest of the survivors, with the nearest rescue ship more than five hours away.

"Without the help of the New Zealand rescue co-ordinators I could not have found them. They were really impressive. I ended up talking more to them than the guys out of Suva."

The Timella crew were then taken to nearby Robinson Crusoe Island, where they were immediately granted their first request for "a cold beer", the owner of the 11.3-hectare island owner Paul McCulloch, said.

"They told us when they saw the catamaran it looked like something from heaven".

A physiotherapist in Lumsden, Ms Timms represents the Eastern-Dome constituency of Environment Southland.

Council chairman Stuart Collie said he was looking forward to seeing Ms Timms when the council met again.

"She will no doubt have some exciting holiday stories," he said.

Speaking last night from her hotel in Nadi, Fiji, Ms Timms said "I am just in shock from the whole thing".