On May 15, Russell Hayley, his 16 year-old-son Brodie and his mate Geoff, all from Albury, went fishing off Hoyers Reef about half a nautical mile offshore, near the entrance to Wallaga Lake.This report has provided more details on what had happened than one could expect and the unexpectedness of the incident was described quite vividly and with a little poetic flavor. It was two waves in this case that caused the damage.
The sky was blue, the swell was small and Russell was sitting back having a cup of coffee. He looked around and saw a large wave swelling of the reef.
He got to the ignition and turned it on but did not have time to put the boat into gear.
The boat rode out the first wave but unfortunately there was a second bigger breaking wave immediately behind.
The second wave rolled the boat. Russell and his son were tipped out but unfortunately Geoff was trapped under water.
He managed to get out about 15 seconds later.
They retrieved lifejackets from the boat. Brodie, a strong swimmer, swam for shore to raise the alarm while Russel stayed to assist his mate who had a severe gash and a broken leg. Russell then towed Geoff to shore.
Geoff was airlifted away at about 2.30pm. Marine Rescue, the surf patrol, the police and ambulance and rescue helicopter attended the incident.
But again it's good that all are safely rescued and a happy ending by any means. Of particular interest to me is this comment by the commander of the Marine Rescue unit:
“With a bommie or shallow reef like Hoyer’s Reef, the waves can stand up very quickly out of nowhere so always be aware of where these are and stay well away.”Now as I alluded to yesterday, this should be theoretically feasible to manifest -- may not be the out of nowhere part. So here is interestingly another new (?) implication on freaque waves occurrences that has not been examined by the freaque waves community -- it can happen over an underwater mount. Indeed, beware the bombora!
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