Gerrit Van Driel

Gerrit Van Driel was born on the 8 January 1952 in the Netherlands (Holland). In Australia he was also known as Gerry Hofstee. He was married, and Police thought he had moved to Geraldton in 1982 because both he and his wife found work there. Gerrit was thirty-one years of age, and he became a deckhand on the cray boat Sea Star, skippered by Dave Johnson.

In the afternoon of 2 April 1983 Gerry, Christopher Gannaway and Lance Raymond, deckhands from Beacon Island in the Wallabi Abrolhos Group finished pulling their pots and then took the three-metre dinghy/boat tender from Sea Star to Big Pigeon Island. They went to spend Saturday afternoon visiting the social club there, discussing the cray season, the boats and their skippers over a few cold beers. The aluminium dinghy had an out-board motor and carried oars, and they arrived at Big Pigeon Island without any trouble.

At 8.30pm they started back to Beacon Island. The water had turned choppy, and the wind was up in Goss Passage, and the dinghy was not coping as well as it did earlier when the water was calmer. A wave slopped over the stern of the dinghy and cut the motor out. The men rowed for a while to let the motor dry out, and then re-started it. It ran on one cylinder for a short time until more water came over the stern and swamped the boat.

Water continued to wash over the stern and the boat capsized dumping the three men in the water. They drifted for a while, deciding what to do.

Gerry decided to swim the kilometre to Long Island to raise the alarm. Chris and Lance worked at unbolting the outboard. They let it sink and then they were able to turn the dinghy over. They were unable to see Gerry, but thought he would make it to the island. They drifted for the rest of the night, bailing water out of the boat with their hands, waiting for the morning when they hoped they would be seen and rescued.

At 10.30 am on 3 April the dinghy had drifted 16 kilometres from North Island, approximately 14 kilometres from where they capsized. They were discovered by North Island cray boats pulling their pots. The alarm had already been raised at the Wallabi Islands that the three deckies were missing, and a message was sent from North Island saying that Chris and Lance were alright.

Dave steamed for North Island straight away. He took Lance, Chris and the dinghy back to Beacon Island and an intensive search was started for Gerry. Aside from cray boats in the water, the Fisheries pilot boat Abel Tasman launched from Geraldton to join the search. Light aircraft and a helicopter travelling to and from the Abrolhos Islands were enlisted to watch the water. They found no sign of Gerry that day, or the next.

The search was scaled down on 5 April. The conditions, the area where Gerry was lost and the length of time he would have been in the water, lent little hope of finding him alive. There was no trace of him on Long Island and fishers had had time to search the other islands.

At 1pm on 7 April Gerry’s body was found floating in the water, near the Wallabi Islands. He was flown to Geraldton for identification.

Gerry was buried on 11 April 1983 in the non-denominational section of the Geraldton Cemetery. His head stone has the message Peace, perfect peace. With loved ones far away.