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A documentary of Australian adventurer Andrew McAuley's fateful transtasman kayak crossing may still be made as a tribute to him.
The official search for him is now over, and no private search is planned. His family now accepted he was dead, said family spokeswoman Jen Peedom.
Ms
Peedom had been in New Zealand to shoot Mr McAuley's arrival for a documentary. She said it was up to the family whether the documentary, without the happy ending, would still be made.
"We have certainly got some amazing footage. We will give it some thought and we will speak to the family. It might take a little bit of time.
"But I certainly think it would be a wonderful opportunity to tell Andrew's story and ... for people to understand the kind of guy he was, and understand the journey, and why he was doing it, and what it was he nearly achieved."
He went missing off Fiordland over the weekend and is presumed dead.
Mr McAuley was in the last stages of his 1600km journey from Australia when a distress call was picked up from him on Friday night which spoke of the boat sinking.
A major search effort was launched and his kayak, locator beacon and GPS tracking system were found about 80km west of Milford Sound on Saturday. It is believed he may have been tipped out of the kayak by a freak wave, but the full circumstances may never be known.
Ms Peedom said "For them it was [Monday] night [when] the search was called off. Up until then they were holding out hopes that he would be found and he would be found alive."
Ben Deacon, a friend and adventure partner of Mr McAuley's, said there was a feeling of disbelief for those back in Australia.
"It is a bit unreal to be quite honest. A lot of people have come out of the woodwork who are equally devastated. We don't have any adequate explanation of what happened."
Mr Deacon, who is also involved in the documentary, said the images filmed essentially belonged to Mr McAuley's wife, Vicki, and she would ultimately decide how they were used.
Mr McAuley's family - Vicki, son Finlay, 3, parents Peter and Julie, siblings Michael and Juliet, and parents-in-law, Lorraine and Donald O'Malley, remain in New Zealand and would hold a memorial service for him here.
They went to see his kayak in Te Anau yesterday. "It was an opportunity to start to try to piece together in their own minds what happened," Ms Peedom said.
The family accepted the searchers had exhausted their options, but they hoped Mr McAuley's body would still wash up on shore or be found by somebody. "I'm very aware that the family would much rather go home having found the body. It would help them a lot."
