Frantic bid to save doomed truckies

Chris Young was uneasy about the weight of two concrete trucks he was meant to follow on to a sea barge in the Marlborough Sounds.

He mentioned it to the skipper of the tug boat towing the barge that he felt one truck was too heavy, but took it no further and got on with his job driving his concrete pump truck.

"As I was reversing down to the barge, I heard a loud crash," Mr Young, 52, told a coroner's inquest in Blenheim yesterday.

"I couldn't see what the noise was, but I stopped my truck and jumped out to see what had happened."

The noise was the sound of the two concrete trucks tipping off the barge and into Picton Harbour. The drivers, Tom Phillips and Allan Tempero, were trapped inside the truck cabs and sank about 8m to the sea floor.

Mr Young rushed to the barge and joined the tug skipper, Mike Sullivan.

"We stood on the barge, hoping to see their heads pop up, but they didn't. We quickly decided we needed divers in a hurry, in case there was pockets of air trapped in the cab."

Mr Young, a trained scuba diver, rushed home to get his gear and dived into the sea, but it was too late.

"I could not find the trucks, as the water was so dirty. I surfaced and saw another diver, Willie Abel, surface. He had the body of one of the drivers with him, I think it was Allan.

"I swam over to Willie and then dove to the trucks again with him. We found the trucks and Willie pulled Tom out of the cab of his truck."

Mr Young said he was concerned about the uneven distribution of concrete between the two trucks, as Mr Tempero's eight-wheel truck was carrying 8 cu m and Mr Phillips' six-wheel truck only 5 cu m.

"I thought the tug skipper needed to know and he said it would be all right, and I left it at that. Weight is an important factor on barges."

Peter McManaway, managing director of the firm responsible for the tug and barge, told the inquest he did not know how heavy the trucks were.

He said he had been told they were the same as two trucks transported on the barge days earlier, so assumed they were up to 22 and 28 tonnes.

"We had no reason to believe they were any heavier. It is awkward - drivers often turn up with no idea of the weight. There's no weighbridge in Picton we can get access to."

The weight of the larger truck is debated, but believed to have been between 30 and 31 tonnes.

Asked if he had a responsibility to the two truck drivers as passengers on his barge, Mr McManaway said: "They are crew. They are part of the operation of the whole unit."

He confirmed that the timber surface of the ramp connecting from land to the barge was due to be replaced on the day of the drivers' deaths. "Another day wasn't going to hurt."

Sue Taylor, the partner of Tom Phillips, told the Herald that she and Mr Tempero's widow, Mary, wanted someone held accountable for the deaths, in August last year.

The inquest is expected to continue for up to three days. A Maritime New Zealand report into the deaths will be made public at the inquest.