No fuel for search and rescue mission on Sunday [1]
Monday, June 18, 2012 - 00:45. Updated on Sunday, April 20, 2014 - 09:50.
By Mary Lyn Fonua
While a search for two missing yachtsmen has stalled in Vava'u, Tonga, today, Sunday, searchers still held out a glimmer of hope that the men may have reached the rugged coastline of the uninhabited Late Island where their yacht "Navillus" was reportedly "shredded" after becoming grounded on Thursday night.
"We think there was smoke seen definitely on the island during the last two days and that's possibly the only hope left," said Ross Knutson, the skipper of the motor launch "Escapade" that was searching the waters around Late Island on Saturday. An Orion had made "a thorough grid search" yesterday, but there was no sight of a dinghy that was thought to have been on the yacht, he said. Tonga's domestic airline Chathams Pacific had also flown over the area.
"Our priority is to try and save lives and everyone is trying," said Ross.
While the Tonga Defence Services patrol boats were out of range in southern Tongan waters, two foreign boats, the Knutson's 24 tonne "Escapade" from Whitianga, New Zealand, and a larger boat the "Patriot" out of USA, had joined in the search.
"The Patriot divers went down and the vessel was described as being shredded, there were lots of different parts, so the yacht had taken quite a beating," said Ross.
"We need to take some good strong men out to Late to conduct a ground search," he said.
But a lack of refueling facility on Sunday due to Tonga's strict sabbatical laws stopped Escapade from continuing the search today. Now, caught up in web of local bureaucracy that the foreign boat owners are finding difficult to negotiate, Ross believed that it was unlikely that they would be able to refuel his boat on Monday morning in time to get a search party landed safely on the volcanic island's dangerous coastline.
Ross said that he needed at least 1200 litres of fuel for the day, and that he had paid for the fuel so far, "but we hope to get reimbursed by search and rescue and I don't mind doing the logistics on that. The priority is to hopefully save some lives," he said.
No fuel
Ross is frustrated that he was unable to refuel his boat after arriving back at Neiafu's wharf late on Saturday because the fuel terminal was closed for the weekend.
"On Friday we did not know this search and rescue operation was going to happen. We went out on Saturday knowing that the fuel could be a little bit short. Today we could not go out because the fuel was not available, and we are told that the earliest time the BP tanker can refuel us will be sometime between 9:00am and 11:00am on Monday, so we will lose another day."
His motor launch can reach Late island in just under three hours, but Ross said it could take 6-7 hours to get people on and off the island in the dangerous swell, so they would have to wait until Tuesday when they could leave early at around 6:30 am.
Denise Knutson said the weather was idyllic for landing yesterday, "but the weather forecast for tomorrow is not like that."
She believed there was still "a glimmer of hope" for finding the two men alive on Late. "I just hope they can survive until someone can get onto the island. But this morning had me crying and asking, oh God why is this so hard to organize?"
Sabbatical laws
Meanwhile, Tonga's sabbatical laws that forbid trading on Sunday, along with uncertainty over who will foot a $10,000 fuel bill for continuing the search has tied up the search boat.
BP's manager in Vava'u, 'Eloni Siale, told Matangi Tonga that the first time he heard of the need for fuel was this afternoon, Sunday, when his security officer called him from the terminal. "I told him to tell the people who wanted fuel to go to the police to get authority to trade on Sunday and also to contact the BP boss in Nuku'alofa about the bill. We also have to make sure who is going to pay the bill because we have had cases like this before and we were never paid, so we are afraid of this," he said.
'Eloni said that because there is no pump on the wharf the petrol tanker had to load the boat directly in daylight hours "We have to make sure that there is no overflow of fuel to the harbour, so it is not safe to do this in the dark," he said.
Tomorrow, Monday, he expected the tanker driver to start work at 8:00am "It will take about 30-40 minutes to do the invoice and about 9:00-10:00am at the wharf to fill the boat," he said.
Meanwhile, BP's operations manager in Nuku'alofa, said he was not aware of the search and rescue operation in Vava'u "The first I heard about it was when the watchman called at around 5pm today," he said.
"We cannot do anything in an emergency today because we are not allowed to work on Sunday. Tonga's laws are very strict and unless we are approached by the Minister of Police with an authorization we cannot release fuel on Sunday. But if the Minster advises us then we can release fuel anytime – it is very easy, they should communicate from Vava'u," he said.
However, 'Ifaleni said that it would have to be made clear who was going to pay for the fuel.
"That is what I am concerned about because we have helped search and rescue before and we refueled 20,000 litres for search boats at over $2 a litre and were never paid. We ended up with a lawyer and are still trying to recover those costs from 2009.
"We must wait for the police or the army to request a rescue at sea," he said.
EPIRB deployed
Reports over the last two days from Maritime New Zealand, which is conducting the search, stated the 50ft yacht ran aground in Tonga on Thursday night. One of the missing men is an Australian. The men had made satellite calls home to a relative in Victoria late on Thursday to report the yacht was aground and breaking up.
An Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) had been deployed off Late by the missing yacht and the search started from that coordinate on Friday.
Henk Gross from Neiafu, who was aboard Escapade said the divers from the Patriot, had found part of the hull in about 30 feet of water close to the shore of Late, where an old lava flow enters the sea. "There is a black cliff and this is where the hull of the boat was found by the Patriot on Friday but there was no mast."
He said the search had then followed the flow of the sea currents. The Escapade on Saturday searched an area South about seven to eight miles, and then to the east about five miles, and then North.
"We found piece of fibreglass floating in the ocean that we believe came from the yacht. It had the manufacturer's name on it and it was the same type of boat.
"The whole area has quite a strong current. There was small fridge spotted and a fuel tank but not the EPIRB so it could be attached to a pile of the boat.
"We also saw smoke on Late Island - but it could be volcanic activity," he said.
Henk said the Orion aircraft had covered a big grid search area on Saturday, but not today because it was Sunday in Tonga.