No sign of life - then the dog appeared

Juanita is lifted from the Tafadzwa after the yacht was taken to the Chatham Islands. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The drifting yacht Tafadzwa was eerily lifeless as a rescue vessel pulled alongside yesterday. Then a dog poked her head out of the hatch.

It was 2-year-old retriever-cross Juanita, who belonged to missing yachtsman Paul Janse van Rensburg.

"When we pulled up alongside, she poked her head out for a bit, but went down below again," said fisherman and diver Floyd Prendeville, of the fishing boat Legionaire, which towed the Tafadzwa to the Chathams.

But 17 days at sea - many of them alone on the Tafadzwa as it drifted with winds and currents from the East Cape to the Chathams, 749km south east of Napier - had taken a toll on Juanita.

When Mr Prendeville approached her, she was timid, shaking and silent.

"She was very wary of me, and then I just pulled her in and gave her a couple of comforting pats, and she was shaking, and then she came right.

"Obviously she was looking for someone. I tried to give her a bit of water and she didn't want water, so she wasn't dehydrated in any way."

Juanita somehow managed to fend for herself after Mr Janse van Rensburg, 40, was lost overboard within days of setting sail from Tauranga for Gisborne on March 12.

Mr Prendeville spoke of the unsettling feeling boarding the Tafadzwa yesterday.

"I've never come across a boat with nobody on it, drifting in the ocean, torn sails.

"It was eerie going on board. I hadn't seen the news this morning. I heard about it through talk on the island, and I just jumped on board to help out in any way I could."

Mr Prendeville has been involved in three other rescue missions, all involving local fishermen.

"When we pulled up alongside, I don't know what I was expecting. I was hoping to see somebody, maybe."

But the boat was empty, except for Juanita.

Emergency equipment, including a small dinghy, was still on board.

Inside, an open container of garlic butter was next to dishes and hanging baskets of slightly blackened bananas, tomatoes and other vegetables.

The only damage appeared to be to the two sails, torn and flapping in the steady breeze, and the netting around the deck, which was ripped near the front right of the boat.

Juanita was carried to dry land, and after trotting around the wharf for a while, was led to a vehicle and taken to the local constable's house.

She will stay there until Mr Janse van Rensburg's family and friends decide what to do with her.

Constable Kane Haerewa said the dog was doing well.

"She's running around with the kids. She's a lot better than she was when we first got on the boat ...

"She isn't 100 per cent - dogs aren't really made for the sea, and two weeks or over by yourself in some pretty rugged sea, I don't think is very easy."

Mr Haerewa said he had seen no initial signs of anything untoward or sinister on board the 11m yacht.

"There is no sign of anything that would have thrown him overboard ... There was plenty of food and no suicide note or anything like that."

He said there was enough food for a week, and the dog's food was also untouched.

In Mt Maunganui yesterday, a mate of Mr Janse van Rensburg, Warwick Gowland, said many of his friends would always wonder what might have happened if the official search had gone on longer or been carried out differently.

"You don't do all you can until you come up with the result," he said.

Friends of Mr Janse van Rensburg were shocked the yacht had been found empty, and Mr Gowland said they wanted to ask searchers to recheck all land masses it could have passed after it disappeared.

"At the end of the day, someone can hold on and can be sitting on a little piece of dirt somewhere, and yes, certainly partly it has an emotional pull to it," he told the Herald.

But seeing photos of the vessel, with its liferaft and canoe intact, "didn't make for a good scenario".

"It was quite eerie to look at them [photos]," Mr Gowland said.

"We're taking time out over the next 24 hours, but then every day's another day."

He said yachting was "a lifestyle" for Mr Janse van Rensburg and messages of support were pouring in from fellow boaties all over the globe.

"He sailed across South Africa and sailed all through Panama and places like that," he said.

"We're getting messages from people all over the world."

The yacht's name, Tafadzwa, means "we are pleased" in the language of South Africa's Shona people.

Yesterday afternoon, Mr Haerewa - the Chatham Islands' only police officer - said he intended to have "a good look at the boat, turn it over and see what's on there", in an attempt to discover what happened to Mr Janse van Rensburg.

If there was nothing untoward on board, it was most likely that a wave had come over or that a line had broken, he said.

He did not know how long the examination would take and said he would look after Juanita until instructed otherwise.

"They [friends and family] may want her freighted back or something like that."

But Mr Gowland said it was too painful to think yet about who would take Juanita.

She and Mr Janse van Rensburg had been inseparable since he found her in Westport a couple of years ago.

- additional reporting: Rachel Tiffen