Inexperienced group with wrong equipment rescued after 'dangerous' kayaking trip down rapids

January 6, 2020

A family of four from Nelson were lucky to survive an "incredibly dangerous situation" on the Motueka River yesterday.

Police said in a statement today the family were kayaking down the river for the first time and weren't prepared for the intense rapids they came across.

At one point, a woman capsized and was swept away head-first, while a teenage girl got pinned against a rock.

The girl's father managed to reach her and they waited for rescue on the rock, calling for help.

Members of the Tasman Land Search and Rescue River Search and Rescue team were dispatched with a jet boat to the scene, where a rescuer gave the pair helmets and walked them upstream to the jet boat where they were then taken back to shore.

The pair were uninjured but were assessed by St John staff before returning home.

Both the woman who capsized and the fourth family member safely made it to shore.

The family didn't have helmets and their kayaks were plastic ride-ons, only suitable for calm seas or lakes, police said.

"To run a river with rapids you need to have the right equipment and know how to use it correctly. You need to be trained how to read the river and how to pick the safest line to travel down," local police search and rescue co-ordinator Sergeant Malcolm York says.

He called it an "incredibly dangerous situation".

"Sit-upon kayaks are designed for family fun on easy, safe beaches which are sandy and shallow with an incoming tide and an onshore breeze.

"Sit-upons are definitely not designed for navigating down Class Two rapids with boulder gardens."

In December, a US tramper said he was lucky to survive after being swept downstream while trying to cross Motueka River, after it had flooded from heavy rain.

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