Brothers and dog rescued after boat sinks off Botswain Point

Two brothers and their three-legged dog have been rescued after their boat capsized off South Australia’s southeast coast. Steve Innes, 74, and Brian Innes, 76, went out with Steve’s dog Luna to check craypots offshore off Boatswain Point on Tuesday morning when their boat went underwater. “Some people would call it a rogue wave, it seemed to come out of nowhere” Steve told 9News. The pair were both wearing life jackets, but only Steve’s self-inflated when they went underwater. Brian was able to manually inflate his own jacket by clinging to Steve’s. A search and rescue operation began after friends waiting to meet them onshore raised the alarm about 2.30pm. State Emergency Service volunteers conducted a large-scale search of the area with the assistance of police, local fishing boats and a Victorian search and rescue plane. The brothers survived by treading water, Steve telling 9News that after a couple hours he started experiencing “fairly dramatic shivering” that got progressively worse as the ordeal continued. After more than six hours of treading water with Luna on Steve’s chest, another wave struck the brothers and sent Steve underwater, washing his dog out of sight. The brothers were rescued about 30 minutes later after a local surfer spotted reflections from their life jackets about 200m from shore just before 6pm on Tuesday. “There were three or four occasions, or maybe more even, that I didn’t think we were going to make it,” Steve told 9News. After watching Luna get washed away, Steve was relieved to arrive on shore to find her waiting. Brian was also reunited with his own dogs who he had left by his car, expecting to return after less than an hour. The brothers were taken to Kingston Hospital where they were treated for sunburn and hypothermia.