Trawler had to go it alone as search vessel in effort to find missing crewman who went overboard

The fishing vessel Nereus was forced to search alone for a crew member who went overboard in the Southern Ocean last week, with Maritime NZ saying the vessel's remote location meant no other ships could reach the area within the likely survival window.

The search has now been suspended, following the man falling overboard from the commercial fishing trawler, about 100 nautical miles east of the Auckland Islands.

Maritime NZ’s Rescue Co-ordination centre (RCCNZ) was alerted to the incident at around 8.30pm last Thursday.

RCCNZ used computer aided drift modelling to help search for the man, and sent out emergency messages to other vessels in the area asking them to assist or be on the lookout for the missing person.

However a Maritime NZ spokesperson told Stuff the time available and remote location meant that the vessel the man was on was the only one involved in the search because it would have taken other vessels too long to get there.