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Fiji authorities appear unlikely to investigate the sinking of a yacht that left three foreigners in the raging sea for more than six hours awaiting rescue.
Environment Southland (NZ) councillor Ali Timms and Australians Cameron Slagle and Elizabeth Schoch found themselves shipwrecked after the yacht they were on struck a reef and sank in the early hours of Monday morning.
Their lifeboat also sank before they were rescued by an American seafarer.
Fiji’s Maritime Safety Administration says an investigation is unlikely.
In an e-mail to New Zealand newspaper The Southland Times, the acting director of the Fiji Island Maritime Safety Administration Captain Inoke Ratotodro said the sinking of Slagle's yacht Timella would normally be investigated but the parties involved had since left Fiji.
"This type of incident requires an investigation to be carried out to determine the cause and improve our systems," he said.
"Unfortunately the persons have all returned overseas and the opportunity to investigate them is lost."
Ratotodro said he was unaware of the sinking until he saw a story in a local newspaper.
"I came to know the incident in the local newspaper yesterday (Wednesday)."
A Rescue Co-ordination Centre New Zealand spokeswoman said the centre's responsibilties extended across the Pacific because countries often did not have the resources to launch full-scale rescue operations.
Slagle hit out at Fijian rescue authorities this week, saying: "They had no fuel to put in their vessels to save us, there was no airlift and they couldn't get their men out of bed."
The trio's rescuer, Maurice Conti, said he and his wife Sophie, aboard their yacht Ocealys, were the only people to hear the Timella's mayday calls — by chance.
He and his wife were in contact with the Fijian police and navy throughout the drama and while less critical of the Fijian response, Conti conceded "very little happened".
A New Zealand’s Rescue Co-ordination Centre spokeswoman said while Fiji had its own search and rescue region it was not uncommon to be called in for assistance.
New Zealand's search and rescue area covers 30 million square kilometres of the Pacific from the mid-Tasman Sea to halfway to Chile and from Antarctica almost to the Equator, she said.
New Zealand is also responsible for Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands and Niue.
