A young was among three people who had to be rescued after their boat got into trouble while fishing in Melbourne’s south last night.
Nathan Hardinge, 43, his son Darcy, seven, and the skipper’s 28-year-old nephew, Matthew Stringer, were gummy-shark fishing in Western Port Bay around 11.15pm when their 5.5m boat struck a sandbar on their way back to Stony Point and partially sunk.
“It was only a matter of time before we were in the water… there was no point in using a bucket,” Mr Hardinge, from Boronia, told 9NEWS.
The quick-thinking skipper made a distress call, lit a number of flares and activated his emergency position-indicating radio beacon (EPIRB) to alert authorities.
“My young boy’s safety was paramount,” he said.
“I was trying to get Darcy in the right frame of mind because he was saying ‘I’m going to die’, ‘I’m going to die’.”
Mr Hardinge said a seven-gilled shark they had caught earlier was in the back of his mind as the trio waited to be rescued for more than an hour.
“We were the next one’s on the food chain… it wasn’t a good feeling swimming around with those things in the water.”
The police Air Wing then spotted them around three nautical miles from shore.
“Emergency services did a perfect job,” Mr Stringer said.
Mr Hardinge was taken to Dandenong Hospital as a precaution, while Darcy and Mr Stringer were treated by paramedics at the scene.
Acting Sergeant Damon Patralakis from Victoria Police said the accident emphasised the “importance of safety gear”.
"There's some difficult waters there... they went into some shallow water and their boat ended up filling with water," Sgt Patralakis said.
"We want to reiterate the importance of having the safety gear on board. Fortunately, these guys have done all the right things. They were wearing their life jackets, they stayed with the boat, they made a distress call and set off their EPIRB."