‘How stupid?’: Albany Sea Rescue president describes initial reaction to deep sea call out off Eclipse Island

Images of a boat being salvaged at Peaceful Bay a week after a -dramatic deep sea rescue were not surprising to Albany Sea Rescue’s president because the “ocean does weird things”. ASR were called into action on the morning of February 1 to rescue three men between the mainland and Eclipse Island. A week later, the boat the men said they had been fishing on was pulled from the ocean at Peaceful Bay nearly 90km away with eight plastic-wrapped packages, each containing about 40kg of cocaine. ASR president Colin Bairstow said east-south-easterly winds would have blown the vessel towards the bay from where it capsized between Cave Point and Eclipse Island. “There is quite a strong current, the Leeuwin Current, that runs west to east that affects things under the water, so this was obviously affected by the wind on the surface to blow it west,” he said. “It’s not uncharacteristic or unusual for a boat to go that far because the ocean does some weird things to stuff.” Mr Bairstow said modern boats had flotation elements built into their design so occupants would have something to cling on to if they took on water or so they could be more easily salvaged. He said the rescued men initially described their boat as a “26ft tinny”, but it had been obvious to the rescue crew it was a fibreglass vessel when they saw the bow sticking out of the water. “Having seen it now out of the water in those few pictures that have been floating around, it’s a modern-type boat but certainly not an ocean boat,” he said. “And when you start throwing different weights around in it — as they did apparently — you upset the stability of the boat, so there could have been all sorts of reasons why it went over.” The swell is believed to have been about 4m where the boat capsized on the day. Mr Bairstow said his initial reaction to the call-out had been it was a stupid place to go fishing. “What a stupid place to go fishing with the weather like it was out there,” he said. “It’s just madness to have been fishing there, but obviously we had a good result because our main concern and main charter is the saving of life — which is what the boys did. They went out and saved three boys in the water, which at the time is all we knew.” Warrants for the arrest of the three men were issued on Tuesday this week, with the first of the three being arrested in the Northern Territory on Wednesday on suspicion of drug offences. Mr Bairstow said the rescue still served as a precautionary tale about checking local conditions before going out on a boat. “Even within 30 or 45 minutes of Albany it changes that quick, so having local knowledge of weather conditions is pretty important,” he said. “And if you don’t know, ask some people. “Not even our local professional fisherman ... were out, and those boys go out in some pretty funny weather because that is their living.”