By Linny Folau

Vailele Taukitoku the owner of the FV Losemani Fo'ou and one of six Tongan fishermen who were rescued by the German cruise ship The Albatros south of Tonga on Saturday, February 4, is thankful for their rescue and his safe return home to Tonga last night, but he's very sad that he's lost his little boat, and his fishing livelihood.

"If we were given the batteries we could have fixed our boat and returned home. The sea - how it was rough at that point -was normal to us," he said.

Vailele told Matangi Tonga that he bought the boat with a loan of more than $100,000 pa'anga from the Tonga Development Bank, and brought it over to Tonga from Greymouth, New Zealand in October last year.

The 61-year-old wants to set the record straight about false information that they were ill prepared for the trip. He said that in fact they were not short of water.

New Zealand Search and Rescue officials who released a statement on Saturday thought that the men had run out of water.

But Vailele said they are experienced seamen and were prepared for a week of fishing, the only problem they encountered was when their engine did not start due to a flat battery.

The boat had two 400 litre water tanks plus five 20 litres of water bottles.

"The running out of drinking water information is false. We had water and had food as well as our reserved stock. We had VHF radio on board as well as flares."

Vailele was surprised by the battery failure. "This was unexpected because it worked before. I have been fishing at sea since the 1970s and I know what I need to prepare for when fishing and I did all the precautions, including checking the weather forecast before and during our trip," he said.

Fishing

Vailele said they were fishing from January 30 to February 1 at Tu'a Tonga for snapper but it was not good catch. They decided to go and fish in another area located around 210 miles from 'Atata, where they fished last December. "We wanted to catch something so we can cover the cost of our trip."

They arrived at another site on Thursday morning, February 2 to an area just off ‘Atata. "We fished there until Friday, February 3 and had more than one tonne of fish with us," he said.

At 7:00pm on Friday they put their fish in their freezer. Then after 10:00pm they saw their rope to their anchor was broken and then they found the engine would not start. "We checked the batteries there were two, one for the equipment up on the deck and the other was the starter battery for the engine below - it was flat."

"Our engineer said that the leather to the charger was loose and that is why it was not properly charging these two batteries."

Being unable to start the boat they were adrift in the open sea.

He said at 2:00am on Saturday, they turned on their EPIRB alert pinpointing the vessel’s location and the RNZAF Orion flew to the area.

The Orion appeared and they circled because they couldn't see us so we set off the orange flare for emergency and they detected us and returned. My family here in Nuku'alofa got the call from Tonga Police at 4:00am that we had set the beacon off," he said.

Requested a battery

"The Orion guessed we had communication problem and they dropped emergency VHF to us and one of my men swam and got it. Our VHF radio was not working because our battery died. We confirmed our engine problem and requested a 24-volt battery to replace it," he said.

"The aircraft [crew] communicated that after two hours help would come and at around 2:00pm we saw the cruise ship. A rescue life boat was sent out from the cruise ship to rendezvous with the FV Losemani Fo'ou.

"I think their intention was to bring us the battery because when we got into the boat there were batteries, a jumper and their engineer was on board, which we think was intended to come and help us restart our boat. But I think they got scared after they saw how our boat was rocking and water was coming in so they decided to abandon that idea and throw us their rope and get us on the cruise ship," he said.

He said the rescue nearly turned out bad because their small boat got dragged and bumped into the cruise ship.

Head injury

"It was not until the little lifeboat came and tried to get us in. The cruise should have stayed away and let their life boat come to us. One of my men was injured on the head during the collision but he is fine now," he said.

"If we were given the batteries we could have fixed our boat and returned home. The sea - how it was rough at that point -was normal to us," he said.

"We are very thankful but at the same time I lost my boat, which is what I earn a living from, so as the other five fishermen."

Tonga rescue coordination

Vailele who was also an instructor at the Tonga Maritime Polytechnic Institute from 2006-16 and a police officer at Tonga Police Rescue unit knows the sea and the rescue procedures.

He wished that the Tonga Rescue Coordination could have assisted him in trying to salvage his boat back to Tonga.

"How can I repay back the loan now? And on top of that, how I would be able to get another boat to continue earning a living?" Vailele said with tears in his eyes.

He said he was only told today by the bank that his loan was not insured, which is odd because he had a loan previously for a boat and it was insured.

"I hope that Government could assist us," he said.

Vailele who is married with one daugther and two grandchildren, lives in Kolofo'ou.