Skipper Travis Whiteman pleaded guilty on the day his trial was due to begin. Photo / RNZ, Libby Kirkby-McLeod
By Libby Kirkby-McLeod of RNZ
A Christmas Eve swimming and fishing trip turned to a bloody disaster in 2022, when two women were struck by a spinning boat propeller.
Both were seriously injured and needed hospitalisation.
On Wednesday in the Thames District Court, skipper Travis Whiteman was sentenced and fined for careless operation of a vessel under the Maritime Transport Act 1994.
On December 24, 2022, the victims, Whiteman and another friend crossed the Tairua Bar before heading towards the Alderman Islands.
The group, aged 21 to 23, consumed food and alcohol on board.
A police breath test of Whiteman three hours after the women were injured returned more than 250 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath, which is the limit for driving on New Zealand roads. There is no alcohol limit for skippers on the sea in New Zealand.
“During the day, he had drunk a reasonable amount of alcohol – that seems extraordinary,” Judge Arthur Tompkins said.
At one point the two victims went for a swim.
Judge Tompkins said the alcohol-affected Whiteman, not seeing where the victims were, put the boat into reverse and hit the two women with the propeller of the outboard motor.
Both victims have name suppression.
One victim had three permanent scars and said in her impact statement she genuinely thought she was going to die from the bleeding on the hour-long trip back to the mainland.
“I find myself wondering how differently things might have gone if help had been called straight away,” she said.
She said she continued to have ongoing psychological effects from the trauma and avoided water-based activities now.
The other victim also spoke of visible scarring and physical, emotional and practical impacts from her injuries.
“Both of us were terrified,” she said.
She said the skipper discarded alcohol bottles from the boat when he should have been calling emergency services.
Whitman’s lawyer said that this point was incorrect and ambulances were waiting for the boat on the mainland, which indicated an emergency call was made. He also questioned the seriousness of the victims’ injuries and raised the fact they had also been drinking.
Judge Tompkins wasn’t having it.
“That’s coming very close to victim-blaming, Mr Wood,” he responded.
Both victims said Whiteman had shown no remorse or taken any responsibility. He pleaded guilty on the morning his judge-alone trial was due to begin.
Judge Tompkins said Whiteman was the only one responsible for skippering the boat.
He fined the defendant $3600 for each of the two charges and also ordered him to pay $4000 reparations to each victim.
Waikato Regional Council took the prosecution against Whiteman and compliance manager Patrick Lynch was in the court to hear the sentencing.
“This should have been a fantastic day for those four young people, and it was near tragedy, and completely avoidable,” he said.
Outside the court, the mother of one of the victims said the girls would not have gone on the boat if she had known the skipper would be drinking.
“Boys, drinking and big boats don’t mix, it should be like cars: no drinking,” she said.
The problem was that in New Zealand there were no rules against drinking while skippering a boat.
“We need to change legislation to make sure that happens, boating and drinking shouldn’t occur,” she said.
Lynch also thought that a change to the legislation was long overdue.
Recreational harbourmaster for Waikato, Hayden Coburn, was also at court and said even if it was not against the law his message to skippers was clear.
“There’s to be no drinking by the person responsible for the vessel and for the crew and their safety on board the vessel,” he said.
And he said that should be for the whole time of the planned trip.
“That’s the preparation before they go out, that’s during the boating, and that’s the follow-up.”
Lynch hoped the prosecution served as a warning.
“We want to send a very specific deterrence to this skipper about his behaviour on this occasion, and we want to send a general deterrence to other skippers who are thinking about drinking and skippering,” Lynch said.
In the meantime, the victim’s mother said healing continued for the two young women.
“The girls are recovering but obviously the psychological scars take longer than the physical scars,” she said.