A man rescued from rough waters in the Hawke's Bay area on Tuesday night. Photo: Supplied
Three people were rescued in the Hawke's Bay after thunderstorms ripped through the region on Tuesday night.
The Hawke's Bay Coastguard was alerted to a mayday call around 9pm on Tuesday from a vessel about 72km east of Napier.
Coastguard skipper Henry van Tuel said the boat had likely come off a wave due to the adverse conditions.
"[The] understanding is that they came off a big wave and there was almost like a hole underneath, and so as the boat crashed down of course. The guys went up and the window shattered."
Two of those onboard the 12m launch were injured - one man sustained a back injury, another cuts from the glass.
The rescue was not an easy one.
"When we arrived in Mahia, at the last known position, we couldn't actually locate them, either on radar or visually," van Tuel said.
The weather had closed in at this stage and there was quite a lot of heavy misty rain, making it "quite difficult to see".
Tuel said they at one stage activated a red parachute flag for the vessel to guide them to where they were. He said they finally located them quite close to Mahia Bay.
Van Tuel said swells of between two and three metres also meant they could not get the injured men off the boat at first.
The anchor on the stricken boat also jammed, and the conditions were too rough to tow in.
"So, we all agreed that we would basically, as the boat was driving, we would come alongside them and take the people off one by one."
An endeavour van Tuel said was challenging but successful.
Rescue boat the Celia Knowles. Photo: Supplied
The next challenge was getting the men to an ambulance.
"Our first option… was to go to the Mahia boat ramp and for the ambulance crew to come out on a tractor into quite deep water and get the guys off."
But with the big swells it was decided that option was too dangerous, so instead they headed back to Napier.
Van Tuel said they left Mahia at 1.11am. Due to the conditions, they did not arrive back in Napier until 5.45am.
"We were only travelling at about 10 or 11 knots, which equates to about 15km/h, so that gives you a sense of what the sea conditions were like."
Van Tuel said the injuries were treated by the ambulance upon arrival and nobody had to go to the hospital.
He said the stricken vessel was found washed up on the beach on Wednesday.
