By Ross McNaughton of RNZ
Waikato District Council is considering closing access to Papanui Point in a bid to prevent drownings.
Located south of Raglan, Papanui Point is the country’s deadliest rock fishing spot and despite repeated warnings, reports and coroners inquests it continues to claim lives.
Water Safety New Zealand has recorded 18 fatalities at Papanui Point between 1980 and 2024.
That figure was almost certain to increase by one, after another fisherman went missing on August 25.
Like many who ended up in the water at Papanui Point, his body hadn’t yet been found.
Harry Series was part of the rescue effort. He had been a member of the Raglan Volunteer Coastguard for around five years, in that time he had attended several incidents at Papanui Point.
“I’ve only ever been on a rescue where we’ve recovered one body. All those other times we’ve never found them,” he said.
It had become a depressingly familiar scenario and not just for rescuers.
The same west coast swells that made nearby Raglan a surfing mecca, made Papanui Point deadly.
Mark Manson works at a Hamilton fishing store and tries to warn customers of the dangers.
“They usually come in on a weekend or a Friday. Part of the conversation we usually say to them ‘where are you going?’ And they’ll say ‘Ruapuke rock’ which is Papanui Point. And I’m like, ‘mate, have you seen the conditions?’ And I’ll point it out to them, and I’m like, ‘no, you needed to choose somewhere else because I wouldn’t be going there this weekend’.”
His advice was not always heeded. Three of his customers had died at Papanui Point.
“I had one in on a Saturday morning. That Saturday afternoon I heard somebody had gone off there and there was a search going and I knew straight away and that’s when I thought to myself, yeah, it’s him and sure enough, it was, yeah, sadly.”
Water Safety New Zealand had identified Papanui Point as one of 10 national drowning blackspots.
A report it commisioned was released in May and revealed the frequency of drownings was drastically increasing.
While two people died between 2014 and 2019, seven drowned in the following five-year period.
A coroner’s report into three of those deaths noted a five-fold increase in rock fishers at Papanui Point in the past five years.
Glyn Morgan of Waikato District Council said one of the options it was considering was closing off access, although that would be difficult. The point itself was managed by the Department of Conservation (DOC), the council owned the carpark, while the access route crossed private land.
“Closure is definitely one of the options that would have to be determined across all the land owners and stakeholders as to how that would be progressed. It’s a challenging space, but it can be done and there are mechanisms in place.
“Something we have done in the last year is we have got the information, the reports and the data behind us now to actually inform what the pathway to enable those things would be. But again, we want to work with our rock fishers, our communities and that just to make sure we get that right. And if we are going to undertake that process or be part of that process it’s not just a council thing, it’s everybody on board in the right direction to agree on the way to effectively save lives here and, if it’s closure that’s a decision that needs to be made.”
Closure may not be a silver bullet though, with the coroner noting it could just push fishers to other potentially more dangerous locations.
In a statement, Niwha Jones, DOC’s Waikato operations manager, said: “A legal closure would set a precedent and due to the location and agencies’ ability to resource it, it may not be effective.”
Waikato District Council is focusing on engaging with Asian communities with the Water Safety New Zealand report finding nearly half of drowning fatalities at Papanui Point were people of Asian descent.
“As part of our working group, we’ve got an awesome detective who supports us from the New Zealand Police,” Morgan said.
“That’s Fred Ramos and he’s facilitated members of our working group into the Waikato Filipino Association. We’re currently running advocacy programmes around safety around rock fishing. Water Safety New Zealand have funded a life jacket hub, which is also at the Filipino Association there. So there’s that direct availability to resource and there’s ongoing education programmes.”
In March last year DOC warned people not to fish at Papanui Point, releasing a short video showing fisherman huddled on the upper slope of the rock as a huge swell battered the coast.
Jim Yeoman of the New Zealand Angling and Casting Association said fishers should be aware of tides, swell and weather conditions before heading out.
“You need to join a club,” he said, “And if you’re going to do rock fishing, one that predominantly does rock fishing. We’ve got several in our association. They’ve got all the information about safety aspects, what you should and shouldn’t do, how to read the water, when you should be on the rocks and when you shouldn’t be on the rocks.”
But even for experienced fishermen, Papanui Point could prove treacherous.
Cellphone reception was patchy. The Department of Conservation was about to install a sign pointing out the one area that had reliable cell phone coverage.
Even once alerted, rescue boats faced a long trip from Raglan to reach Papanui Point.
That’s one of the reasons last month’s coroner’s report recommended mandating life jackets for rock fishers.
RNZ understands the person who went missing on August 25 was thrown a life jacket, but did not get to it.
- RNZ