On camera: dramatic rescue of fishermen on New Zealand boat on which five died

A man clinging in the dark to the wreckage of a fishing boat let go and leapt into the arms of a rescue swimmer in a dramatic video shot from a New Zealand emergency helicopter after a boating accident in which five people died.

Rescuers and police divers on Tuesday found the fifth body in the water after the chartered boat carrying 10 people broke apart in stormy seas on Sunday night.

Five people were rescued from the sea at around midnight after clinging to different sections of the overturned wreckage for hours, and four bodies were recovered later on Monday.

The video, shot from the Northland Rescue Helicopter at about 12:30 a.m. on Monday after the boat's rescue beacon was activated more than four hours earlier off the remote North Cape, showed one rescuer issuing instructions.

“Clearances are good. At your discretion, if you want to tack right to the target. At 40 feet, 35, 30,” he says as the rescue swimmer is winched down into the sea.

Helicopter pilot Lance Donnelly said he wore night vision goggles as they flew to the scene with a team that included another pilot, a winch operator and a rescue swimmer.

He said it was the most dramatic rescue he had undertaken in 30 years of flying as they navigated the darkness and squally seas.

They were not able to land somebody on the wreckage but instead put a tethered swimmer into the sea nearby.

Donnelly said they first rescued three people who climbed aboard a large piece of floating wreckage and then came back for two more about a kilometre away who were clinging to the overturned hull. He said that in the darkness, they could not find the bodies of those who had died.

“I think that was probably one of the hardest things for our crew, is that we'd effected a rescue of five people and we were wondering where the other five were," he said.

Called the Enchanter, the 17-metre boat had left the northern port of Mangonui on Thursday with two crew and eight passengers aboard for a planned five-day fishing trip to the remote Three Kings Islands.

News outlet RNZ identified one of those who died as Mark Sanders, a 43-year-old builder and dad to three children. Sanders' father Graeme said his son was a talented sportsman and keen fisherman who had been looking forward to the fishing trip for two years.

“He was worried about the forecast for the last day or so that he was fishing," Graeme Sanders told RNZ.

He mentioned that his son had told him before going that the forecast "doesn't look good, we might have to come back early”.

The five people who were rescued were admitted to a local hospital and later discharged.

The captain of the Enchanter, who reportedly survived the accident, could not be reached on Tuesday.