A boat capsized off Wellington's south coast, a diver was stranded and a jetski towing three teenage girls left floating powerless in the harbour, in a busy weekend for maritime police and the Coastguard.
Police say they were lucky to not be dealing with anything more serious than several rescues.
The first incident happened last night when a man on a jetski was towing three teenage girls on a "sea biscuit" off Petone beach.
The rope caught up in the jetski's motor which lost power. Onlookers on shore could not see the three girls, aged 12, 13 and 14, and called police about 8.15pm, said Sergeant Dave Houston, of the Wellington police maritime unit.
The police launch Lady Elizabeth III found the group, which had been in the water for about 30 minutes in the gathering dark. They were trying to push the jetski the 400m back to shore, Mr Houston said.
"Unfortunately they weren't getting anywhere. They were pretty cold and very happy to see us."
About 10am today, someone in a bach at Sinclair Head on the south coast reported a capsized boat floating 100m off the coast with two people sitting on the hull.
By the time emergency services, including the Coastguard, arrived, the two had managed to swim ashore.
The boat capsized after being hit by three waves, Mr Houston said.
"The skipper couldn't manoeuvre because divers had just been put in the water. He was a dead ship and couldn't do anything about it."
The boat, a 7.5m White Pointer selling for more than $100,00, was tonight being pounded among rocks by southerly driven waves.
Emergency services were called out a third time to help near Karori light, where another boat had damaged its outboard motor on a rock.
The people in the boat had lost sight of their diver in the water and were in a bit of a panic, Mr Houston said.
The diver, who had swallowed a lot of water, was found about 500m away.
The boat was towed back to Owhiro Bay and the diver was taken to Wellington Hospital with moderate injuries.
Around Sinclair Head was quite a treacherous part of the south coast and was very tidal, but it was also very popular with divers, Mr Houston said.
"It's bad luck what happened, but at the end of the day it could have easily turned to disaster."
