Boat of missing West Auckland man Bryce Frecklington found off Far North coast

The boat of Bryce Frecklington, above, who has been missing since Thursday, has been found off the Far North coast.

A long-range helicopter with three police officers on board has been searching the Northland coastline after the discovery of an inflatable boat belonging to a missing man.

The inflatable boat has been confirmed as belonging to Auckland fisherman, 47-year-old Bryce Frecklington, who has been missing since Thursday off the Karikari Peninsula in Northland.

It was found upright on the water by another boatie about 10.30 am on Saturday, almost 12 nautical miles out to sea off Karikari. The discovery was reported to police on Monday.

The missing man's family confirmed the boat was the one Frecklington had been using.

Rescue Co-ordination Centre NZ took over leadership of the search on Monday night from police.

The Royal NZ Air Force P3 Orion that was searching yesterday morning was stood down and RCCNZ deployed a Salt Air helicopter from Paihia to do a shoreline search based on drift modelling along the Karikari Peninsula yesterday.

At edition time yesterday no further sign of Frecklington had been found by searchers.

Frecklington, who is from West Auckland, was staying at a Department of Conservation (DoC) campground in Maitai Bay on the peninsula, and was reported missing last Thursday.

DoC Kaitaia operations manager David Neho said DoC alerted police after there was no sign of Frecklington at his tent for several days.

A Karikari business owner said locals were talking about the man's disappearance but were not speculating about what might have happened.

Sea conditions in the area had been fairly calm, he said.