A Tasmanian coroner has ruled that a Campbell Town man drowned during a 1979 fishing trip, more than 46 years after he disappeared in Great Oyster Bay.
The finding closes a case that until recently had no official record, after his granddaughter pushed for it to be investigated.
Coroner Leigh Mackey handed down the ruling on April 22.
Noel John Jones, 41, set out from the Swan River on December 30, 1979 with three other men in a 12-foot aluminium dinghy. Only two lifejackets were on board.
By 1:30pm, conditions had turned. Survivor Terrence Leedham described metre-high choppy waves and a north-easterly wind across the bay.
The boat swamped and overturned about four kilometres south of the Swan River mouth. Jones, Leedham and Noel Price were thrown into the water.
Jones and Leedham were wearing lifejackets. Price was not.
The three men clung to the overturned hull for hours in rough seas, at times forced to let go as the boat rocked.
In the hour before dawn, Jones told the others he was being bitten on the legs, possibly by sea lice.
He tried to shift position. The boat tilted. He lost his grip and drifted into the darkness. Leedham tried to reach him but lost sight of him.
“This is the last time Mr Jones has been seen,” Mackey said.
Price died later that morning. His body washed up on Cooks Beach on February 3, 1980. Leedham survived and was rescued.
Jones’s body was never found. Under the Coroners Act 1957, coroners could not investigate a death without a body.
His granddaughter reported the case to Tasmania Police after discovering no coronial file existed.
