A gearbox problem and a broken steering cable saw the Coastguard called out twice to help rescue people on the Tauranga Harbour earlier this week.

The first rescue involved using the twin waterjet powered TECT Rescue to tow the 35 tonne boat from near the sulphur point wharf back around to the Sulphur Point Marina on Tuesday, says coastguard operations manager Simon Barker.

Tauranga Volunteer Coastguard rescued people from two vessels this week.

'He [the yacht owner] motored down from Whitianga and anchored overnight in the harbour.

'He went to start it in the morning and basically blew the gearbox. Something went wrong with the gearbox, they dropped anchor and gave us the call to bring them into the marina.”

In the second rescue, after the tide had turned, a steering cable on a 4.5m runabout's outboard motor broke in the entrance on the outgoing tide.

'He's [the fisherman] basically broken the steering in the entrance but was being pulled out by the tide,” says Simon.

'He had a small auxiliary, but it wasn't strong enough to fight the tide. He managed to get over to one of the marker buoys.”

Simon says the man had dropped his radio overboard, so called 111. 'The police gave us the message, so we went and got him.”

The Rotorua fisherman had an auxiliary engine, two forms of communication, and then tied up to the nearest thing he could, says Simon.

'There were some pretty big standing waves in there at the time, the tide was pretty much full speed going out with little northerly swell coming in.”