Episode 2: An Unplanned Swim Part 2

What if a simple wristwatch and the will to survive were all that stood between you and the endless sea? This week, we unravel the gripping story of Will Franson, who fought against hallucinations and the elements while stranded off the coast of New Zealand. His tale of despair turns to hope with the unexpected arrival of Skipper Max White and his friends, James MacDonald and Tyler Tafts, whose quick actions transformed a life-threatening situation into a remarkable rescue.

Our journey doesn’t end with Will's rescue. We shift focus to the arduous mission to recover the Betty G, the vessel from which Will fell. With days of aerial searches and maritime alerts, the suspense builds until the boat is finally located ashore near Waihau Bay. The operation to bring Betty G back is fraught with challenges, but the tenacity of the crew and the emotional bond with the boat’s original builder, Russell, shine through. This segment captures the essence of resilience and the deep connections we form with our seafaring crafts.

Finally, we reflect on the critical lessons drawn from these harrowing experiences. From the indispensable use of Personal Locator Beacons (PLBs) to the importance of logging trip reports and ensuring everyone aboard knows basic boat operations, this episode is a powerful reminder of the need for boating safety.

Next week get ready for our next adventure, where we explore a new fishery for southern bluefin tuna and catch up with Tony Walker from TK offshore fishing, and Elroy Thomson and Christine Almiger,  who were involved in the recovery Betty G.

https://www.nzsportfishing.co.nz/
https://saferboating.org.nz/
https://www.tpsfc.co.nz/
https://www.coastguard.nz/
https://www.hutchwilco.co.nz/

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:01

I'd started hallucinating by this stage. So some of the boats that I imagined that I saw probably weren't even there. So I'm bobbing around there. I'm seeing all sorts of weird things, what I called a stairway to heaven. All around me I was seeing these latticework stairs that extended up into the sky, and I'd see them on one side and I think, oh, that's weird and I'll look out there. And they're on that side as well. Everywhere I look these things and I'd never experienced anything like that before.

Speaker 2 0:41

Welcome back to the NZSFC Pod and Reel podcast. I'm Mike Planch, your host. Last week we left Will Franson as he is drifting alone at sea from the Alderman Islands, 20km from Tairua in the Coromandel on the eastern coast of New Zealand's North Island. Will was drifting towards Mare Island 30km from Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty. Will had made it through the night and a new day brought optimism. However, increasing wind and waves soon deflated this optimism.

Speaker 2 1:11

As he battled to stay afloat above the waves, little did he know three young men Skipper Max White and his mates James MacDonald and Tyler Tafts had left Auckland to stay at their nana's house in Whangamata. The boys were keen to go for a spot of marlin fishing themselves. Never catching the acclaimed fish before, they were soon to find a far more remarkable catch on their nautical journey. Media reports afterwards all pointed to Will using his wristwatch to shine sunlight at the men to gain their attention. We rejoin Will in this episode and find out what came first. So, will, did you see the boys or were you using your watch to get the attention I thought about?

Speaker 1 1:53

the watch. At some point over the night or something, the sun I may have been able to use the watch, and I thought about that and I thought, well, if it happens, I'll try. And that's all I got is a plastic, plastic lens. But the wind settled a bit, as maybe about lunchtime, but I wasn't. I refused to look at my watch, I didn't know, but I sort of had a feel that the sun was sort of pretty much overhead or gone overhead. I'd started hallucinating by the stage, so some of the boats that I imagined that I saw probably weren't even there, but I still kept looking. My eyes were really sore, burnt I suppose, and I'd have to keep them shut. I think I was nodding, sort of nodding off, but straightaway waking again. So I had brief little micro-sleeps maybe, but I had to keep treading. But with that wind dropping, the waves dropped and it got better. And then I saw and it was a boat. It was probably if anybody here owns a big rivy, that might've been you Pretty sure it was a big rivy. They were sort of heading in my direction, but then for some reason they changed course. I tried to use my watch to signal at the top of waves, holding it like this right above my head, but I'd sink underneath and then I'd kick and try and signal again. I don't think they would have. I wouldn't have probably got a flash from where the sun was, but anyway, I gave that a go and then maybe that was 12 o'clock, because I think it may have been at least two hours until the boys came along in their boat.

Speaker 1 3:30

So I'm bobbing around there, I'm seeing all sorts of weird things, like what I call the stairway to heaven, all around me. I was seeing these latticework stairs that extended up into the sky I call it the stairway to heaven and I'd see them on one side and I'd think, oh, that's weird, and I'd look out there and they're on that side as well. Everywhere I looked these things and I'd never experienced anything like that before. Anyway, james and Tyler, do you want to give a wave Please? These two boys and Max, yay, these guys were chugging along towing plastic and the sun was behind them and I had my watch and I flashed it and almost immediately they turned towards me and I kept flashing and then one of the outriggers went up and I kept flashing and I'm waving and they're waving back and I think they're not coming for me, I'm still flashing. I just didn't believe it.

Speaker 2 4:30

Eh, but they saw me and Will how did you feel when you knew it wasn't a hallucination and it was actually a boat coming to rescue you?

Speaker 1 4:39

Disbelief. I suppose I found a lot of energy. They came towards me, sort of overshot me a little bit. I just, with timing, and, and, tyler, did you extend the boat, hook out or what was it? A gaff? I thought it was hell pay, you know, trying to get me there's tag ball in the other hand. So I don't know what I grabbed, but I grabbed whatever's extending and I can still remember pulling myself and almost running up their boarding ladder which they'd put into the boat and then I collapsed.

Speaker 1 5:09

I think, hey, I don't know how I got in your boat, but I think you said have you caught anything? So these guys did an amazing job. Once they recovered from the shock of not getting a marlin, they took this T-shirt off. They gave me the clothes that they had a T-shirt, a sweater, a parka over the top of that, and then they wrapped me in their fish bin as their prize and their flexible fish bin, but it all kept me warm. They hightailed it. They said there was a bit of discussion, james, about where should we go, and he decided back to Whanga. The throttle went down and they were off for home and, I think, called Coast Guard first.

Speaker 2 5:54

So you arrive in Whanga Matar to an entourage of Coast Guard the police. St John, who was there? Do you want to come up and use this microphone as well?

Speaker 3 6:06

there's no such thing as a free lunch. I think once we got Will in the boat we were hightailing him back to Wonga. So police and Coast Guard were really good. They said come straight back to the marina, didn't want, I suppose, a few eyes on and nosy individuals at the boat ramp. So we headed straight into the marina and we had St John and the police waiting for us, so docked up at the jetty and, I suppose, started Doing their thing, eh, checking everything's all right.

Speaker 1 6:40

There's a young paramedic there, it's Kelvin. So Kelvin is a good friend of mine. He was holidaying with mutual friends in Whangata. As we're motoring to Whangata because my phone's on the boat, I'm thinking how can I contact anybody? What's the numbers to ring somebody to tell them what's happened? And I thought about Kelvin being on holiday and these guys I said if you ring Cambridge Vets, who Kelvin works for, there's a free plug. Kelvin, hopefully they'll give you his number and could you please ring him. Which is what transpired. Eh, so Kelvin dropped everything and was at the fuel berth at the marina waiting as well, which was pretty awesome.

Speaker 1 7:25

From there, I think there's a gathering of police and a few other friends and these guys and paramedics and they checked me over and put one of those heater blankets on me, which is pretty amazing. They thermal sheet things that they break and create heat, I think those ECG monitors and stuff to check me out. And then from there they were going to transfer me to Thames Hospital. They strapped me into St John's ambulance gurney things and started wheeling me down the jetty to the waiting ambulance. This is bizarre, but Barry, who was the paramedic who then took over, was leading the way and was trying to dodge all the dock lines and ride the gurney over them and so on, and it was like quite a wavy sort of a trip the first few metres and I thought, hey, barry, can you just stop a minute? And he looks at me, says you all right? I said, would you just mind unstrapping me from this thing for a second until we get the other end? Because I said, if you, if I fall in, strap, strap to your gurney. This is true then I'll be dead by the time I'm at the bottom and I don't feel like dying at that stage because I've just been rescued, so this. So they kindly unstrapped me and and then the other thing that I clearly remember is we're heading for the ambulance.

Speaker 1 8:46

And I thought, as soon as I got on the boat and these guys covered me up, I saw a bottle of water which I put my hand on, didn't ask, and it was warm and I just started necking it, and then the famous cranberry juice and then more water. I drank that much by the time I got back to Whangātā and I remember hallucinating really badly too, seeing signboards and sheep crates and stuff going by, but I needed a pee before I got the ambulance, which is good. Yeah, so you had to had to sort of deal with that before heading to Thames. I don't know what you did, james. What did you do next?

Speaker 3 9:22

We came home. Everyone's obviously quite interested in the day's fishing. Typically what you see, what you caught, went out with three, pob came back with four. So there was a few conversations around the dinner table. There may have been a few jokes at your expense, will, but no, it was a few long conversations and then followed by probably moments of silence, just as we were all sort of just absorbing and taking it in.

Search and Recovery of Betty G

Speaker 1 9:53

I had more checks and the AMBOs are really good. All the carers are really great. Headed to Thames Hospital Kelvin followed me there. He had organised for my kids to. Kelvin followed me there. He had organised for my kids to meet me at ED. There my family took the place over. I think my son was trying to contact the Navy and the Air Force and anybody he could talk to or try and raise to find Betty G, because of course Betty G was still chugging away into the Pacific and now that I was all right the next thing I wanted was my bloody boat back, thanks. So they, they did various tests and stuff and and, uh, released me into Calvin's care about 12, 30 and he very kindly had a Heineken ready for me and a Waikato for himself and that that was just lovely seeing I was fully rehydrated and ready for life again.

Speaker 2 10:42

Let's hear it for James, though. Awesome effort, mate, and the whole team, so you're safe and well, but the challenges haven't ended, because you're trying to find BTG. Yep.

Speaker 1 10:57

The next morning at about 6, 6.30 Kelvin, something like that pretty early, and I was trying to do everything reasonably to try and recover your loss. So you have to take all steps to get your boat back, basically because you can't just expect to claim insurance otherwise. So you can't just give up on it. So I started ringing everybody this is now the 3rd of January trying to find a pilot who would go into the sky to look for my boat. Most of them were on holiday or had single engine Cessnas or little planes and John Norman who became the salver in this. Most of you know John, he and Laura are in town. John had calculated that Betty G was probably 170 to 200 nautical miles off Tyro already, just chugging along because I was already at the Aldis. So the plane was going to be searching a fair way from land. And I managed to convince a chap called John Reid from Taronga in his 80s 82 I think, sort of coaxed him out of retirement and he went in this plane in a twin engine Cessna and clearly did huge miles, square kilometers looking, didn't he? So no, no sign of the boat and nothing heard. I mean they, john Norman, put out a notice to mariners through Maritime New Zealand to alert all commercial boats, which is what they do, because nobody wants to run into the boat unattended in the middle of the night or any other accidents as well. Nobody saw anything. So basically we heard nothing for 13 days, glenn.

Speaker 1 12:54

So I received a text. My mate in Wellington rang me and said have you seen that picture? Is that Betty G? And I opened up my phone because I hadn't heard the message come through. This lady had photographed Betty G coming into shore near Waiābei. Jeff got notified by the wife of somebody who's the friend of somebody else. Who heard, who thought of this? And about four hands later I get this picture.

Speaker 1 13:23

So straight away I ring Glenn and John Norman, my middle son, and I, within two hours we're heading for the Cape, so we're heading down. There is a three-kilometre beach there called Rokokori I think it is on there gravel beach, and Betty G quietly touched the beach between the perimeters of it, which are all rocky coastline If you know Waiābei, it's just all rocks. She quietly came ashore and then got beaten up a bit, I suppose, being pushed up the beach. John Norman and his partner Laura arrived slightly after us at just on dark. We drove past and then couldn't find her in dusk. Lots of phone calls. A local chap told us said look, I'll bring you to the boat in the morning. So my son and I met him at seven o'clock. John and Laura had a work boat with them. They had organised a 1,200 horsepower tow boat through Glen Hunter, there Ocean Eagle from Taronga, and those guys motored down through the night.

Speaker 2 14:29

So with your charts. You said you got the screens. Were you able to get the positioning and the tracking of the boat from when you fell off? Was that on the nav gear? No, sadly.

Speaker 1 14:44

So let's just talk about the Betty G and what happened with her after I fell off. So Dean was on the boat and rang me inspecting it the next morning after she was recovered and he asked if I knew the hours on the engine prior to this happening. And I'd filled out the log book the morning I left here. Tyrell and Betty G had, before she arrived on the beach, run for 230 hours without stopping, which is nine and a half days, on about 500 litres of diesel. So she's got a Gardner 6LXB 10.5 litre, two and a half tonne old English, slow, hardly use any diesel. It's about 1.4 litres per hour at idle. So nine and a half days she was chugging around somewhere we don't know where, and then she stopped and eventually came ashore in Waiābei.

Speaker 2 15:42

Can you tell us how did Betty George, the boat's namesake, react to the news of Betty G's recovery and your survival as well?

Speaker 1 15:51

So I went to see Russell a couple of weeks after losing what I called our boat. I'm very mindful that Russell put his life into building the boat. She's a local icon. I'm her custodian. After I got over the elation of being alive, I sort of felt pretty stink that I'd lost the boat and I fronted up and it was a pretty emotional sort of a meeting. Russell gave me a serve rightly so. I deserved it. But we've moved on from that. We caught up a couple of weeks ago. They're delighted she's back in town. Russell was hoping to get some wheelchair access and come down and have a look over again. He's more than welcome. It's his boat. They're just wrapped and happy that I'm alive.

Boating Safety Lessons and Changes

Speaker 2 16:37

So a pretty special connection between you, betty G and its original owners. That will always be there, I guess. What does it mean to you to be part of now Betty G's story and its journey back here to Taira?

Speaker 1 16:50

Well, it's great to have her back. I can't believe the support I've had from locals saying g'day, somebody drove by in the middle of the night You're here today, I think and wished me well the other night. No, I didn't even see you, I just said thanks and see you. Then the support's been amazing. I want to touch on. There's been a few rumors apparently on that. This was an insurance job and you guys can probably enlighten me a little bit more. But I didn't plan this bloody swim very well if it was an insurance job. Eh, because you think I would have had a boat to get into or a rock or something. But, john, I know you had. I've already thanked you, you had my back. I understand with a few of the stories and I hope it sort of clarifies things a little bit. I love that boat and I wouldn't do anything.

Speaker 2 17:39

I guess, what other lessons have you learnt from this experience and what will you change going forward when you, when you're solo fishing, health and safety and all that? Well, you know, just so it doesn't happen again, hopefully okay.

Speaker 1 17:53

So I could have had a plb on uh. I've since bought one. There's a lot of things I could have done. So let's talk about my trip report, because one of the learnings out of all this happening was I logged my trip report. I had a conversation with the search and rescue manager at Coast Guard in Auckland who told me that they don't follow up on trip reports when we place them. My question to him was why were my next of kin not notified that I was overdue? And it turns out that most trip reports are never close. So that's all of us going boating saying 5POB, we're going out for a fish at the Aldi's, coming home and we've that call still open. We haven't closed our trip reports.

Speaker 1 18:40

They do bar crossings. They monitor bar crossings. So when we the bar, if we don't call them going in or out, within 10, 15 minutes they'll contact you to say are you okay? And you've probably found that, like I have Betty's a slow boat, they'll often ring me before I'm even in because it takes me a while to get in to say am I all right? So they monitor bar crossings. They do not monitor trip reports. They do not have the resource to do so. So when you go out, you have to tell somebody in your family or friend to say, look, I'm going out today, I'm going to the Aldi's, I'll be back at 7pm. If I'm not, they need to know to contact Coast Guard at 705. If you're not back in because nobody else is going to do it, it has to be generated from us. So that's one of the big lessons that I learned in this and one of the changes that I'm hoping is going to make a difference for us.

Speaker 1 19:40

I won't wear a life jacket and BDG in the normal circumstance. I probably will on my own now, because I'd be too bloody embarrassed to stand in front of you and give another yarn. I've got a whole new suite of life jackets and I've got a PLB. Normally on a launch you don't wear life jackets, right. A bar crossing you might. But there's a whole lot of other things I could have done. I could have tied myself to the boat. I could have put her out of gear. Trailer boats are probably a different story because of the size of them and I've got to secure my safety rails now so that I can't lift them out. So they're going to get modified. They're stainless. It's just something I'll do.

Speaker 2 20:19

I was at the on the water boat show just a while back and bumped into a guy I know who's at Pawanui, who solos a lot, and I said, look, I've got this event coming up. I'm going to be talking to the guy who fell off his bike and he said it's funny that because I've changed the way and this is him speaking I've changed the way that he puts, set nets out and also gets a lot of pots and he does that solo. And because of your experience, he's bought a PLB and also a cut off to his engine that he wears now every time he goes out. So you have changed behaviors of other people for this experience you've been through.

Speaker 1 20:56

So andrew, do you just want to come up and say what you told me earlier about this? This is andrew from coast guard, who we met earlier. Uh, so so, andrew, you put a dive weight or a dive belt with just tell us what you do.

Speaker 4 21:12

When we get on our Coast Guard boat. Everyone wears a PFD. We do not take it off the skipper there's four skippers in our unit, so when one of us skippers gets on the boat, there's a dive belt with a plb on it and a knife. We have plbs on dive belts at the back for anybody who's on the back of the boat, because they're the most likely going to fall out in rough conditions. We also have a plb in our grab bag, which is we. That's the last thing we'll take if we have to abandon ship. And, uh, we also have a boat epurb. So we have in total we have uh like six plbs and an epurb on our boat.

Speaker 4 21:57

And once I was just saying in the in the short break that, um, we have attended in my time in coast guard, three solo fishermen. Well, one of them actually wasn't solo, he was with his wife, but he didn't tell his wife how to turn the boat off, so he went overboard and drowned. So first thing you do when you get on a boat if you've got people who aren't used to boating, show them how to start it, how to stop it, how to drive it. Just those basic things. Another fellow Christmas before last. We spent eight hours on Christmas Day searching for him. He went overboard solo. At the time he wasn't wearing a life jacket and we found his body the next day, christmas Day. It's changed everybody in our unit's opinion of boating solo, you need to be doubly careful about everything and you should be putting your PFD, your life jacket, on when you get on solo. Don't take it off. Don't take it off. You should also be hooking a PLB under 500 bucks. It'll send a GPS position of where you are and don't take that off either.

Boating Safety and Fishing Updates

Speaker 2 23:08

Thanks, andrew. That's Andrew Gibson, president of Coast Guard, taira Pāwanui, and that concludes our second episode. Photos and videos from Will's story are available in this episode's show notes. Coast Guard offers memberships and day skippers courses to prepare boaties before they venture out. Details are also in the show notes. Thanks to Jordan and Hutch Wilco for kindly providing a PLB that was raffled to raise funds for Coast Guard. Hutch Wilco have all the essentials to stay safe at sea.

Speaker 2 23:37

The New Zealand Sport Fishing Council are members of the Safer Boating Forum. Next week on the Pod and Reel podcast, we travel further down the coast to y how bay where will's boat betty g was found. We catch up with christine almiger who first found the boat betty g ashore, and we discover a new abundant fishery that enables sport fishers to get their fix in winter and also poses a new set of challenges to catch these fish. Join me next week as we discover southern bluefin tuna. The pot, pot and Reel podcast is brought to you by the New Zealand Sport Fishing Council. Listen on iHeartRadio, rover or wherever you reel in your podcasts.