Three lives saved and a Coastguard accolade

The December 2014 rescue of three fishermen from rocks off the Karikari Peninsula has earned official recognition for Coastguard Houhora and the Northland Coastguard Air Patrol.

They received a Certificate of Operational Activity at the New Zealand Search and Rescue awards ceremony in Wellington on Tuesday night.

It had not been an easy rescue, Northland Coastguard Air Patrol president Murray Miskelly recalled, even after the three were spotted frantically waving.

It was the early hours of the morning when Northland Coastguard Air Patrol and Coastguard Houhora were instructed to begin the search at first light. The weather overnight had been wet and windy, with rough sea conditions, and the trio had failed to return from a Boxing Day trip on Rangaunu Harbour. They had also failed to tell anyone where they intended to go, had no life jackets and no communications.

Twenty minutes after the air patrol launched they saw the bow of the five-metre aluminum boat, which was partially submerged, and soon after found the men on nearby rocks.

"They were waving, really waving. Where they were, at high tide you can't see the rocks and they had been there overnight," Mr Miskelly said.

Coastguard Houhora were alerted and two vessels headed to the location, but choppy seas made it unsafe to approach the island.

The men were finally rescued after 16 hours of being exposed to the elements. One swam to a Coastguard boat while the others, one of them suffering severe injuries, were winched aboard a Northland Electricity rescue helicopter along with his friend who had waited with him on the rock.

The awards judges said both Coastguard Houhora and the Coastguard Northland Air Patrol had gone above and beyond their routine work.

"The air patrol extended the search area and searched where others had not thought to," they said.

"Coastguard Houhora volunteers used their skills as well as their own vessels in an excellent example of collaboration and co-ordination, which saved three lives at sea."

Mr Miskelly said it was often the air patrol that found people, but it was not generally there to make the actual rescue, so the recognition was pleasing.

"You quite often get called to rescues and you can be searching for hours and not find anything, so to find these guys after being on scene for about 20 to 30 minutes, that was a great result," he said.

Coastguard Houhora president Robin Gemmell said he was humbled but excited to receive the award. This had the unit's first big search since it was formed in 2012, and it had been an exciting experience.

"There's no doubt you get an adrenaline rush; this is what we do," he said.

With no idea as to where the men might be, the Coastguard unit had consulted a local fisherman regarding a likely destination. The crew of around 15, who relied on the volunteers' boats, then searched the harbour while the air patrol searched the open sea.