Search continues, 'flotsam' found

Deteriorating weather forced search boats off the water early yesterday afternoon. Photo Hamish...
Deteriorating weather forced search boats off the water early yesterday afternoon. Photo Hamish MacLean
Searchers looking for two Owaka friends who failed to return from a fishing trip have today found some 'flotsam' from the pair's boat.

Whetuki Sam Kopua (77), known as Sam, and Matekino Lucy Burling (60), were reported missing on Wednesday after going fishing off the Catlins coast.

Senior Constable Murray Hewitson, of Owaka, said the seas were too rough today for an immediate search so people were combing the coast for clues, and: "We've found some flotsam from the boat."

Sen Const Hewitson said it was too early to say what happened to the boat. "The boat's gone down and . . . after that we can't really determine what's happened."

He said search and rescue groups from across South Otago and Dunedin were involved and local boaties were helping search for the pair as well.

Earlier story

The search for the pair is into its third full day.

When deteriorating conditions forced the search to be called off late yesterday, neither had been found.

Police today said land-based teams had resumed the search, while water-based squads were waiting for tidal conditions to settle before entering the water.

Conditions were being monitored and the teams would enter the water once it was safe, Southern police spokesman Nic Barkley said.

Meanwhile, a snagged anchor could be behind the capsize of the boat on which the pair were fishing.

The regular fishing partners were reported missing by Mr Kopua's wife about 6pm on Wednesday after they failed to return.

Mr Kopua's overturned 5.2m Kiwi Kraft boat, Kristala, was spotted southeast of Nugget Point by searchers in a fixed wing plane about 10am Thursday, but the pair were not found.

After launching from the Catlins River at 8.30am on Wednesday, the pair were last seen from shore heading south past Jacks Bay at 9am.

LandSAR crews and four boats continued to search a wide area spanning from Long Point to Taieri Mouth yesterday, incident controller Sergeant Martin Bull, of Balclutha said.

The boat's GPS information had been downloaded and it gave the searchers ''an indication as to where and when it may have capsized,'' he said.

The boat's GPS stopped transmitting ''about two miles southeast of an area called Whitehead'' - a spot favoured by some fishers.

''The anchor was out and there was bait on one of the lines,'' he said.

''It's not a concrete indication that that's what they were doing at the time something happened.''

Police do not believe the boat capsized where it was found, he said.

An inflatable rescue boat was sent to search the coast between the two mouths of the Clutha River about 2pm yesterday after a bottle filled with a favourite drink of one of the pair was found. But the search yielded no further clues.

The land based search of the Catlins coast had been slow yesterday, Sgt Bull said. Search crews had to ''navigate down'' cliffs to access beaches.

''And then there's radio problems when they're down there.''

Mrs Burling was a Catlins LandSAR member and the search teams would continue to search for one of their own today, Sgt Bull said, on land and in the water. Searchers would begin to focus their efforts towards Taieri Mouth, to account for the current moving clues.

''It's not the outcome that we're wanting or looking for, but [the searchers'] resolve hasn't suffered, I'll give them that much,'' Sgt Bull said.

- additional reporting Hamish MacLean

 

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