Crew struggled to save skipper

Press, 4 July 1983, Page 1

Crew struggled to save skipper

PA Auckland A crewman yesterday told of the desperate struggle to reach the skipper of the yacht Karie L who had been washed overboard about 170 miles northeast of Auckland on Friday.

Mr William Franklin, aged 58, said, “I just kept on trying to swing the motor until I was totally exhausted ... it was our only hope.”

The yacht’s skipper, Norman Robert Beere, aged 33, is missing, presumed drowned.

Mr Franklin, of Kerikeri, and Mr Roberto Fuchs, aged

24, a Brazilian tourist, arrived at Auckland at 10 a.m. yesterday aboard the Royal New Zealand survey ship Monowai.

The Monowai found the Karie L, which left Whangarei for Tonga on Thursday, about 7 a.m. yesterday.

A five-man crew from the ship sailed the yacht until about 11 p.m. on Saturday when the Monowai was met by the patrol boat Hawea.

The Hawea and the Karie L, sailed by crew of the Hawea, were due at Auckland late last night. Messrs Franklin and Fuchs were in their bunks

about midday on Friday when a freak wave hit the boat and threw the skipper, who, had been in the cockpit, overboard.

The yacht had encountered bad weather with high seas and 40-knot winds.

A shocked and upset Mr Franklin said he heard a faint call after the freak wave hit the boat.

“I was getting up to go (on deck) and I felt that he (Mr Beere) was calling me from the cockpit,” he said.

On deck Mr Franklin looked round and then realised that the skipper had been thrown overboard. “It was a freak accident

... he was not attached to the craft.” The cabin was thrown into disarray after the wave crashed against the Karie L and Mr Fuchs was trapped in the forecastle for several minutes by an anchor and ropes. He managed to free himself, unhurt. Mr Franklin said that they threw a lifejacket to Mr Beere and tried to turn the yacht. “It was impossible,” he said. “Our only hope was to have started the motor but it just would not start. "We just kept drifting further apart ... and then nothing. We did everything possible.”

Mr Franklin said he set off the emergency bleeper and when the first aircraft came overhead fired two flares.

Signals from the bleeper were picked up by a Friendship aircraft on a scheduled flight. A Civil Aviation Friendship was diverted to investigate the signals.

An R.N.Z.A.F. Orion relieved the Friendship and left a radio beacon, with sea anchor attached, as a guide back to the yacht before returning to Auckland on Friday night. An Orion found the yacht again early on Saturday morning a few hours before she was found by the Monowai.