A Northland community has rallied around a family of eight children who have lost their father in a tragic fishing accident. His death left the children parentless as they had earlier lost their mother to cancer.
Keen sailor and fisherman Norman Dalebrook ran the popular Skyline Cafe at the top of the Brynderwyn Hills, where he had been raising his eight children, aged 8-21, since his wife Sharron died of breast cancer six years ago.
On Saturday, 51-year-old Mr Dalebrook drowned while trying to free his 10.5m trimaran Skyliner after it hit rocks on Taranga Island, the Hen in the Hen and Chicken archipelago, 15km southeast of Bream Head.
Rescuers praised the bravery of 16-year-old David Dalebrook, a Bream Bay College student, who tried to save his father from drowning.
Yesterday, David joined his brothers and sisters as they gathered to support each other with family members and friends.
The Dalebrook family are well known in Waipu and Ruakaka, where they attend school and are involved in the Presbyterian Church. Mr Dalebrook was on the Waipu School PTA.
Family friend and Waipu pharmacist Tony Solomon said the death of Mr Dalebrook had rocked the children's foundation.
The community had rallied already to make a plan to care for the younger children.
"Everyone we have been talking to has offered to help look after them," Mr Solomon said.
He and other members of the community had taken in some of the children for a short time after their mother died in 2003.
"We will all pitch in again and do what we can to help," Mr Solomon said.
Mr Dalebrook's partner of three years Laticia - who has three children of her own - was devastated by the death.
Through tears, she told the Northern Advocate: "I don't know what is going to happen now."
Mr Dalebrook and David took the Skyliner out to go fishing on Friday and anchored overnight.
The drama began on Saturday morning when a swell lifted the anchor and washed the trimaran on to rocks.
When the pair tried to push the yacht off, Mr Dalebrook slipped, knocked his head, was washed into the sea and drowned.
David activated the emergency beacon just after 7am and the Northland Electricity rescue helicopter was dispatched from Whangarei.
St John advanced paramedic Mark Going, who was also the winch operator for the rescue, praised the teenager for using flares to guide the helicopter to his location.
"He knew what to do and did everything right."
Mr Dalebrook was winched from the water about 100m off the island.
Whangarei Coastguard president and skipper John Haselden said the sea conditions were testing, with gusty winds and confused swells.
"We had a wave wash over the wheelhouse, which made things very interesting at one point," he said.
The coastguard rescue team was about a third of the way to Taranga Island when they were stood down as the helicopter crew reported that they had picked up David and his father's body.
In a separate incident, just before dark on Friday, the Whangarei Coastguard crew towed a boat with six people aboard to Marsden Cove Marina after the engine on a 7m yacht failed near the Hen and Chicken Islands.
Mr Haselden said the skipper spoke very little English but had raised the alarm using a cellphone and they had managed to establish where the boat was.