Doomed boat battled six metre waves

A southwesterly change ripped through Foveaux Strait on Wednesday evening, kicking up six-metre giant waves, the MetService revealed today.

The stretch of water would have been "moderate to rough'' when the Easy Rider capsized just before midnight.

MetService forecaster Micky Malivuk said west-northwest winds picked up to 35 knot gales shortly before the weather changed direction around 9pm on Wednesday - just hours before the fishing boat went down.

The earlier winds had produced "quite a large swell'' of around 3m, he says, when the cold weather front brought wind and rain from the southwest.

Mr Malivuk said data indicated with a combination of the 3m westerly swell and 2.5m waves, the sea could have risen to 4m, with the "occasional'' 6m wave lashing the Strait.

He concluded: "Looking at all of this, it was quite a strong change but most of the damage would have come from just ahead of the front where a combination of sea and swell was unusually high for the Strait for this particular wind flow.''

The southwesterly produced winds of 25 knots, gusting to 35 knots, in the Strait, the MetService says.

 

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