Wearing dark sunglasses and drawing on a rolled-up cigarette, the man was visibly shaken.
He told the Bay of Plenty Times the sea chop had been "pretty rough" when water first came into the small dinghy, which was found the following day near the island.
"But I wasn't too concerned at the time," he said.
The men had been drinking before taking the boat out into the Omokoroa channel "for fun" about 8pm.
When the boat flipped, two men swam for shore. Shortly after, Mr Kane did the same. Mr Hogarth disappeared.
The man said from the jetty yesterday he had not realised how serious the situation was when the water first began coming in.
He was to appear in Tauranga District Court today as one of two men charged with stealing the boat they had been using that night. The Bay of Plenty Times has not named the man for legal reasons. Yesterday, he boarded the Tauranga Harbourmaster boat with a police detective to direct it through the course the men had taken in the Omokoroa channel, and to the location where it capsized. The boat slowly navigated the western side of the Omokoroa peninsula, where police and navy divers using sonar equipment were moored to a beacon. Land searchers continued scouring the shorelines.
It is understood family friends were helping with the search.
