KEY POINTS:
A father who clung to his dead son at sea after a birthday fishing trip ended in tragedy is recovering in hospital.
Alan Hampton, 44, and boat owner Duncan Powell, 32, were plucked from the water 10.2km south of the Whanganui River mouth yesterday along with the body
of Mr Hampton's son, Geoffrey Mark Hampton.
The trio had gone fishing on Saturday to celebrate Geoffrey Hampton's 19th birthday when the boat sank.
The men were forced to spend the night in the water.
Both Mr Hampton and Mr Powell were reported to be in a stable condition today after being treated for hypothermia.
Rescuers spotted trio at 7.40am yesterday.
Wanganui police senior sergeant Darcy Forrester said police did not know exactly what happened to the 4.88m runabout, except that it had been swamped very quickly after taking water on the stern, leaving them no time to call for help.
"I think they did everything right. They did a trip report, they had a radio on board, they had lifejackets," he said.
It was not yet clear whether the accident occurred on the fishing trip or on the way home, but police believed they had spent the night in the water.
Police were alerted to the missing boat at 8.50pm on Saturday, after Wanganui Coastguard reported it had missed its scheduled return time of 8pm.
Mr Forrester said the Energy Direct Rescue boat had searched the area where the men were thought to be until about 3.30am yesterday, but could not find them.
Wanganui police search and rescue controller Barry Billows said the last known report indicated the group would be fishing 3km off the river mouth and rescuers had even searched as far out as 22.22km, using local knowledge to try to work out where the boat might be.
At 7am, an Air Wanganui twin-engine fixed-wing aircraft had set out to search the coastline south the river mouth as far as Foxton, and spotted the missing men on the way back.
Mr Billows said Mr Hampton was still coherent and Mr Powell was slipping in and out of consciousness when they were pulled out of the water.
He believed the boat was now on the bottom of the sea.
The families were very upset and still coming to terms with what had happened, he said.
A Wanganui Hospital spokeswoman said Mr Hampton and Mr Powell were conscious and able to talk with family by 3pm yesterday.
- NZPA
