Four Kiwi adults are unhurt after a yacht they were on became stuck about 425 kilometres southeast of Suva, Fiji.
An NZDF aircraft located the yacht beached on a reef near Tuvana-i-Ra, a small atoll with three people living on it.
The four crew have safely made it to the atoll, where they will wait until a Fijian Navy boat reaches them. This could take up to one day and no other vessels are expected to visit the area.
"The yacht's four crewmembers had abandoned the yacht and are safe and well on the atoll," Air Commodore Darryn Webb said. "They used the yacht's radio to establish communications with the Orion crew."
An emergency beacon was set off from the yacht at dawn and a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3K2 Orion left Auckland on Friday morning to assist the search.
People on board sent texts to their relatives overnight, telling them the yacht's backstay was broken, affecting their ability to sail. The last text message was received from the yacht about 2am.
The 18m yacht had set off from Picton to Tonga, but the crew advised through a radio message on Thursday night they had changed course to Fiji after the equipment malfunctioned.
The backstay is one of the wires that support the mast, and when it broke it meant the yacht could only track properly in one direction.
Newshub.
