By ROSALEEN MACBRAYNE
Kirsty Robinson thought about her family and tried to keep positive as she drifted for hours off the coast of Maketu after a fishing trip turned to tragedy, leaving her the only survivor.
She had to watch her companions, John Lim, aged 38, Tim Cantwell, 14, and finally her father, Ross, 45, gradually slip away after their boat, Mafoff 3, sank near Plate Island.
The 16-year-old then tried repeatedly to swim to shore but was fighting against the tide.
Kirsty, who had been the only one wearing a lifejacket, stripped down to underwear and a T-shirt because her clothes were weighing her down.
Speaking emotionally yesterday of her ordeal, Kirsty clutched two soft toys - a bear she has named No Comment and a dog called Mark after one of her rescuers.
She told of seeing several planes fly above her and boats in the distance, but her waves for help went unnoticed.
At one stage she heard splashing behind her.
"It might have been dolphins or something. Hopefully, they were looking after me."
Almost 30 hours after the nightmare began, the Tauranga Volunteer Coastguard plucked the teenager to safety on Monday afternoon, about 12km off the coast east of Maketu.
After two nights recovering in Tauranga Hospital, Kirsty told her story haltingly, still sunburnt and chafed severely under the chin from the lifejacket that almost certainly ensured her survival.
A keen angler and 1997 junior female world record holder for a kahawai on a 2kg line (caught off Plate Island), Kirsty vowed never to go fishing off a boat again.
But on Sunday morning she had asked her father if there was room for her to go on a planned fishing trip with him, Mr Lim and Tim, who had come down from Auckland for the day.
Borrowing his good mate Brian Goldsbury's new $60,000 boat, which was well-equipped with safety gear, Mr Robinson took the helm and they headed for Plate Island, a popular fishing spot.
With a small chop on the water, they anchored and fished briefly. Kirsty's two little snapper were the only catch.
Thinking they had drifted off the best fishing spot, Mr Robinson went to the front of the boat to pull up the anchor.
Soon afterwards, things went badly wrong.
An attempt to retrieve the stuck anchor with a side-mounted winch caused the boat to move sideways and eventually tilt.
"Suddenly it was upside down," Kirsty said.
Flung into the sea, all four managed to clamber on to the upturned hull. None was wearing a lifejacket.
That was shortly before midday on Sunday and they were to remain clinging together until about 3 am on Monday.
"The sea was a bit choppy. I was really scared. Dad was telling everyone to calm down - someone would come to get us."
At one stage, Kirsty said, she started telling blond jokes which went down "okay" with her companions.
"Dad said to keep cuddling each other to keep warm."
Tim was waving out when he thought he saw passing boats.
An aircraft flew "straight over the top of us," she said, haltingly recalling snatches of the lengthy ordeal.
By late afternoon, she remembers "starting to get a bit worried."
Kirsty said her father went under the boat to try to activate an emergency locator beacon but was unsuccessful.
In the dark, they watched the lights on the coastline as the hours dragged on and they huddled together.
Then the boat began to sink.
"It was similar to the Titanic," said Kirsty, who had been sitting on the top of the boat, with Tim beside her "on the pointy bit."
Her father and Mr Lim were in the water, standing on the bow rails as the vessel's stern slowly went down, the angle becoming steeper and steeper.
Shortly before they were forced into the water, one of the men grabbed a lifejacket as it floated out from underneath the boat, and the others all urged Kirsty to put it on.
In tears, she told how first Mr Lim (who could not swim) disappeared, followed, much later in the day, by Tim.
She and her father remained clinging together through the night and, as Monday dawned, drifted towards Whale Island.
"I was trying to keep awake. Dad was saying: "We are going to get out of this.'"
As the morning wore on, Kirsty said she tried repeatedly to give her father the lifejacket but he would not take it.
"I don't know why Dad wouldn't take the lifejacket. He probably wanted me to survive."
Then her father said he could no longer hold on.
"I kept on telling him to hold on, somebody is going to come shortly.
"He was hugging me, and then he floated off."
During the next five hours, Kirsty said she wondered: "How could this have happened to me?"
She thought of her mother, Val, and brother Gareth and of the other families.
When planes and boats were tantalisingly close but obviously unaware of her, "I was really frightened. I thought no one was coming to find me."
Kirsty said she kept trying to swim to shore and was about to give up when yet another boat turned out to be the coastguard.
"I was so happy."
Survivor fights tears to tell her own story
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