'I told my mate: bro, hold on’: Man recalls moments before wave hit fishing charter

When a passenger on a fishing charter saw large waves crashing against the sea wall at the Whakatāne bar as they prepared to cross, he thought “this isn’t good”. 

He told his mate, “bro, hold on”, before the boat nearly capsized and he saw passengers thrown overboard. 

Cascade Charters Ltd and skipper Philip Magee were charged under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 and were sentenced in the Tauranga District Court late last year. 

While the passengers were granted name suppression, one told NZME he now wanted to share his story and what he recalls from the “life and death situation” in August 2021. 

The man was on the charter for a day’s recreational fishing with workmates but had experience with smaller boats and fishing at the Whakatāne bar. 

He’d taken the opportunity to stand near the cabin to observe the captain and learn more about “the running of boats and the conditions of the sea” from a skipper who handled larger vessels. 

On the return journey, about 20 minutes out from the bar, he heard a warning from the coastguard about the bar being a bit “tricky” that day; the man asked the skipper what he planned to do. 

He was told they would see what the conditions looked like. 

When they got there, the man saw large waves crashing against “the wall” – an area of sea wall also popular for fishing. 

He asked again what the plan was, and the skipper indicated he was going ahead with crossing the bar. 

The man said he faced a dilemma – he wasn’t sure if he should warn other passengers about the conditions, but “didn’t want to alarm everybody”. 

He thought, “The captain’s made the call [to cross the bar], he should [warn them], not me”. 

“But I told my mate, ‘bro, hold on’.” 

He said the Bandit fishing charter boat “got caught” by a wave, which he had seen approaching from behind. 

There was no panic by anybody else on board. 

“I could see they were all oblivious to what was going to happen to us, and I watched the wave come up on the side, it came from behind, it started to lift us at the back, and then it came to the side, right where I was, and it rose above the boat.” 

He thought, “I don’t know if we are going to make it”. 

The wave rolled the boat halfway over, throwing passengers over the side of the boat, and the man said he was clinging to a pole. 

He ended up parallel with the sea, and saw at least two men go overboard, one of whom was in his 70s. 

The boat righted itself and other passengers had been injured by objects moving around on deck. 

He said he called out “man overboard” and looked at the skipper, Philip Magee, but claims there was “no reaction”. 

“He just looked at me. I could see in his eyes that he was in panic mode,” he said. 

“I told him, you need to turn this boat around and we need to go back out and get those men.” 

The skipper turned the boat around, and the man said he went to the side of the boat and could see the 79-year-old in the water. 

“He was up in the channel, so he was coming down towards us ... he was coming to me fast.” 

He went to “lean out to grab him” and saw he wasn’t moving, he was “just going with the current” with his head down and arms up, floating. 

“I leaned down onto the boat and, as he was about 5m from me, maybe more, someone else on the boat, a younger person on the boat ... looked over, saw him and just jumped in.” 

“And they both disappeared ...” 

It wasn’t until an hour later that he saw a smaller boat and realised it had come to their rescue. 

He was relieved when he realised the man who’d jumped overboard had been rescued, as he was the husband of one of his colleagues. 

“There were heroes that day, and he was one of them. He saved that man’s life ...” 

The wife had been a hero too. 

“She had said, ‘Where’s my husband?’, and I told her [he jumped in].” 

During the hour when they didn’t know where the missing men were, or if they’d been rescued, the wife – a registered nurse – had tended to those injured on board. 

“I don’t know how she put that aside ... she didn’t ask anything after that. She just got stuck in and helped.” 

One of the injured women had needed to be moved from the Bandit to the Coastguard vessel, and the passengers helped with the manoeuvre. 

After the Coastguard left, the skipper “finally came out, and he faced us”. 

“He looked at us, he had a half smile, and he just said, ‘you fellas will have a story to tell your grandchildren, won’t you?’” 

The Bandit, operated by Cascade Charters, was hit by a wave, causing it to pitch and throw passengers overboard. Photo / Cascade Charters 

The man said he couldn’t wait to get off the boat and see his wife, who’d been waiting for him, but was unsettled about a week later while whitebaiting, when he saw the same charter boat, with the same skipper, returning from fishing. 

“I could hear the radio blasting, I could hear them talking and laughing,” he said. 

“They’d finished the day and they were coming in to moor their boat ... On a day ... just a week later, where they know two people nearly lost their lives. Could have been three, could have been four.” 

Cascade Charters defends charge at nine-day trial 

Cascade Charters Ltd and skipper Magee were prosecuted by Maritime New Zealand for failing to ensure the health and safety of passengers. 

While Magee pleaded guilty to the charge on the morning of trial, Cascade Charters defended it in a nine-day judge-alone trial. 

The judge found three of four particulars of the charge proved and convicted the company of the charge in a decision released to NZME in late July. 

The judge’s findings recorded that as the Bandit was crossing the bar, a large wave caught up with it, causing it to broach heavily to starboard. 

Three people were thrown overboard, excluding the man who jumped in to assist the elderly man. 

An unsecured seat that passengers were seated on was thrown to the starboard side, pinning a passenger to the side of the vessel. 

The skipper, Magee, remained in the wheelhouse to get the Bandit out of the bar, while passengers assisted each other with injuries. 

Skipper says he was ‘shocked and upset about what occurred’ 

Magee said in a statement to NZME that the passenger’s description of how he behaved after the wave hit was “not something I accept, and it was not part of the charge I faced or of what the judge decided”. 

“But I am not going to stand here and argue with a man who watched people he was sitting beside go into the water. He is entitled to feel the way he feels,” he said. 

“I stayed on the wheel because if I had come off it, we would have lost the boat as well, with everyone still on board. 

“I know that is not what it looked like from the deck. I certainly reject any suggestion I acted in a light-hearted way following the incident. I, like everyone on board, was shocked and upset about what occurred.” 

He said he was the skipper, the passengers were in his care, and he had “never tried to say otherwise”. 

“To [the 79-year-old], and to every one of the men who ended up in that water, I am sorry. That is on me, and it stays on me,” he said. 

“I pleaded guilty because I was guilty. What I accepted responsibility for was my passengers not being in lifejackets when we crossed the bar, and the gear on the deck not being secured. Those were things [that] were mine to get right. I did not get them right and people were hurt. 

“Any river bar can change in minutes. I made the best decision I could given the situation we found ourselves in. Things moved very quickly that day, and at the forefront of my mind at all times was the safety of the passengers.” 

He said that since the incident, he has worked with the Coastguard so that other skippers are better informed. 

“I cannot undo what occurred and carry the heavy burden, knowing I let people down that day. As a skipper of the boat, this hits very hard.” 

Magee was fined $3000, while Cascade Charters had to pay a $25,000 fine, make a $130,362.49 reparation payment to the victims, and pay $60,000 towards the cost of the prosecution. 

The passenger who NZME spoke to said he was not happy with the overall outcome, and thought the $3000 fine for the skipper was “a joke”, because he “nearly killed a man”. 

He remained of the view that criminal charges could have, and should have, been laid, particularly because there had been no instruction to put on lifejackets. 

“He didn’t even talk to us to tell us, I think you need to put on your life jackets, I think you need to get ready.” 

The man found it hard that the company had denied the charge, meaning the passengers had to give evidence in court. 

“They put us through that because they were denying the charge,” he said. 

“Oh, that just made me sick. [I thought] I’m going to court and I’m going to give my side and these guys are going to know exactly what they’ve done. They can’t ignore it.” 

Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.