NSW: Sailors ditched by sinking boat run over by rescue ship
By Katelyn John25 Feb 2009 6:33 PM
SYDNEY, Feb 25 AAP - Two sailors survived a fatal boat capsize and seven hours in high seas only to be "creamed" by the ship sent to their rescue, a Sydney court has been told.
On its way from Queensland's Whitsundays to Sydney in September 2002, the 15-metre racing boat Excalibur hit rough seas and high winds east of Seal Rocks.
The crew tried to head back towards Port Stephens, north of Newcastle, but the keel split and the vessel overturned.
Of the six crew members tossed into the chilly waters, two survived - skipper Brian McDermott and John Rogers.
The boat's builders, Adrian Presland and Alex Cittadini, have pleaded not guilty to four counts of manslaughter "arising from gross negligence" in the construction of the boat, completed four months before the incident.
Mr McDermott told the NSW District Court of being at the helm as the keel of the Excalibur broke away, bringing the mast crashing down.
"I heard a loud knocking and the boat heeled over 90 degrees flat onto the water," Mr McDermott told the jury.
"I yelled out 'The keel's gone'."
After lying on the sea surface for up to 15 seconds, the boat then "completely inverted", Mr McDermott said.
In the water, buoyed by his personal flotation device, Mr Rogers found Mr McDermott and then assessed who else had survived.
"I started yelling out: 'Who's up, who's up?' ... but there was no answer," he told the jury.
The pair clipped themselves together then spent more than seven hours in the water before being spotted by a rescue aircraft.
Deemed too dangerous to rescue the pair from the air, a nearby ship was redirected.
"Unfortunately, the course was a little bit too accurate," Mr Rogers said.
"Brian yelled out: 'Oh, it's a ship' and I looked up and a 50,000 tonne cargo ship ran over us.
"It's just literally creamed us.
"We went tumble, tumble, like you were in a tumble drier, straight underneath the ship."
The pair surfaced about three quarters of the way down the side of the ship, he said.
It then took 11 attempts to get them on board.
"Brian was well and truly incapacitated at that stage," Mr Rogers said.
"I was wearing a lot more warm gear."
Survival expert Dr Jeffery Brock said Mr McDermott was "on the edge of survivability" and would not have lasted much longer in the water.
Tracy Luke, 32, Ann Maree Pope, 30, and Christopher Heyes and Peter McLeod, both 51, lost their lives in the incident.
The bodies of Ms Pope, Ms Luke and Mr McLeod were never recovered.
The trial continues.
