Three Southland men were rescued without even getting wet when their fishing trawler sank near Bluff early yesterday.
The 13.4-metre Ayson struck rocks about 3am and sunk near Stirling Point at the entrance to Bluff Harbour while returning to shore.
Bluff Coastguard vessel, NZAS Rescue and the South Port NZ vessel Takitimu responded to the emergency.
Sergeant Ian Martin, of Invercargill, said the three men were picked up by the Coastguard and returned to Bluff while Takitimu recovered Ayson flotsam.
Bluff Coastguard president Andy Johnson said the rescue was a textbook operation, aided by crew who ''did everything right''.
He said the fishing boat had ''a fair amount of fish on board'' but had encountered a mechanical fault with a winch at sea and had to return to Bluff.
Two of the three crew had been sleeping at the time, and the third had been steering Ayson back into port.
''It was an error of judgement. You can cut quite close to the headlands, but he probably misjudged the distance.''
The rescue operation took less than an hour and a-half, aided by the crew's quick actions and good weather.
''It was nice to get people on board without fishing them out of the water ... they didn't even get their feet wet.''
Ayson's owners were ''pretty keen'' on salvaging the vessel, which was in a shipping channel, Mr Johnson said.
Fisherman's Shore Station marine radio operator Meri Leask said she received a call at 3.18am from another vessel 12 miles away who heard Ayson's mayday call.
The skipper and two crew then boarded the fishing boat's life raft.
''It was a wonderful, marvellous result. These are men from our community,'' Mrs Leask said. Ayson was built in 1969 by Dunedin-based Miller and Tunnage, and is powered by a diesel engine.
The Otago Daily Times understands the timber commercial trawler was sold by a Careys Bay man about a year ago to the Hokonui Runanga Trust.
Environment Southland's marine oil spill response team yesterday inspected the vessel as between 3000 and 5000 litres of diesel is believed to be on board.
Regional on-scene commander Dallas Bradley said there was only a small spill, probably caused by fuel escaping from the fuel tank breather pipes.
There were no indications that diesel had entered Bluff Harbour, he said.
While the vessel is in shallow water, salvaging it could take several days. Environment Southland will monitor spillage.
