Southland farm manager Barry Bethune, the 46-year-old twin brother of anti-whaling activist Pete Bethune, survived the capsizal of a fishing boat, along with two women.
Yesterday he gave a tearful account of their almost five-hour ordeal on Tuesday night.
The group of five had all been wearing life jackets when their recreational fishing boat was hit by a wave and sank off White Island in Foveaux Strait.
Barry Bethune and the two women in their 40s eventually made it ashore to nearby Ruapuke Island, but his 23-year-old son Shaun and best mate Lindsay Cullen (59), did not make it.
Shaun left a widow and two sons, aged 2 and 6 months.
"She's lost her soul mate. It's just devastating for his little family," Mr Bethune said.
The group had gone out on Mr Bethune's twin-hulled boat, Extreme Limits, an ex-commercial paua vessel, so Mr Cullen's friend and her sister visiting from Kapiti could go fishing.
"But it just turned to tragedy." The boat was doing about 15 knots when a wave struck at an angle and flipped the boat about 6.30pm.
Those onboard were thrown across the cabin and Mr Cullen suffered a blow to the head.
Seconds later, the cabin filled with water and the group had to scramble to escape.
Mr Bethune helped one of the women out before trying to get back into the boat to try to reach an emergency locator beacon.
"I tried twice to dive down in through the window, but twice I got hit by big waves. I was already banged up as it was, and I just couldn't get in there." The group perched on top of the boat, holding on to a rope they tied to one of the hydrofoils.
They tried to use their cellphones but they were too wet and waves kept pounding against the boat.
The boat drifted about 1km off White Island before it started to sink.
"Within the space of about two minutes it went from being flat to sinking beneath us, so we all had to watch out that we didn't get caught up in the ropes as it went down."Mr Bethune and Shaun, the two strongest swimmers, were on opposite ends of the huddle as they swam towards White Island.
"We thought we were going to make it, but then the current - we sort of ended up drifting past it. We probably missed it by about 200m."
The group decided to head for Ruapuke Island.
By about 10pm, the current had taken them past Caroline Bay, about half an hour before nightfall.
"We had a renewed effort to try to get towards where it was, we actually made really good ground," Mr Bethune said.
"Then I turned around and Shaun was unconscious, and I checked to see if he was alive. But he was dead.
"And then my best friend Lindsay, I checked with him and he was the same. They both died of hypothermia. They'd just gone unconscious, they didn't drown.
"I wasn't sure if we were going to be able to make it or not, so I made the decision to leave them. They had life jackets on so I knew they'd float."
The remaining three later spotted a boat about 100m away.
"So I swam by myself, tried climbing into the boat but it was too rock-and-rolly for me to get into it. So I started yelling, 'Come and help us, please help us'. Some people on shore heard us."
A man headed out on a boat but Mr Bethune said he couldn't remember exactly what happened next.
"I can remember somebody helping me walk, I couldn't walk by myself - I was just too unsteady up the beach."
Police said the three survivors were rescued by the owner of the fishing vessel Easy Rider, who helped carry them back to his camp.
Barry said they were given warm clothes and sat by a fire.
"I was trying to warm myself up by this fire, I was just shivering uncontrollably."
A rescue helicopter arrived about 10 minutes later and took the group to Southland Hospital, where they were assessed before returning home.
Mr Bethune said none of them would have survived if not for his son's efforts at keeping the group together.
"If he hadn't gone on that other side and paddled and swam, he could've made it by himself. But he chose to help those other people."
He described his son - a wiry 1.7m-tall dairy farm worker who friends knew as Shorty - as a "rough diamond".
"He's had brushes with the law, but as one of the local cops said, he's a likeable rogue," Mr Bethune said.
"Just in the last six months he'd started a new job, he was going really well. He was looking forward to keeping his head down and becoming a farm manager, and he would've. He'd had the skills - he's been farming long enough."
Shaun "loved his kids to bits" and was also close to his uncle, Pete Bethune.
"He used to do a lot of hunting and that with Shaun. Shaun really looked up to his uncle."
Shaun's funeral will be held next week to give his uncle time to return from overseas.
Mr Bethune also paid tribute to his best mate of 10 years.
"He'd just help anyone, and he was skilful with his hands. He had a good heart and he was a hard-working bugger."
Mr Bethune said he had been asking himself if he could have done anything differently.
"I just wish I'd never gone. I've lost my son, my hunting mate, my diving buddy, my fishing buddy and my best mate."
He stressed the importance of always wearing life jackets, and said skippers should always keep their emergency beacons on them rather than in their boat.
Other maritime operators spoke of the need to advise of trip intentions in the unpredictable strait.
Chris Hawless, of Mana Charters, in Bluff, told the Otago Daily Times it was vital to always tell someone where you were going and how long you would be.
Rogue waves have taken 10 lives in the strait in the past 10 years.
Police said both bodies had been recovered, one from Ruapuke Island and the other from the sea nearby.
