The Tauranga Volunteer Coastguard is being kept busy with people's boats breaking down at night, in what is the end of season trend of mechanical faults.

The Coastguard was last night involved in its third night rescue since Friday.

A boat in trouble between Karewa Island and Mount Maunganui made a distress call at 9.45pm requesting a tow.

The call was picked up by Auckland Coastguard which monitors the marine distress frequencies at night, says Tauranga Volunteer Coastguard operations manager Simon Barker.

He still has little information about the problem.

'They reckoned they couldn't get their boat up on the plane, probably because of the weather,” says Simon.

'They kept taking water in over the boat, but I don't know whether there was something wrong with the boat or not.

'So they basically packed it in, they couldn't anchor because it was deep so they just drifted, and we went out and towed them back.”

There were two people aboard. The distress call was made about 9.45pm and the Coastguard's TECT Rescue boat was back just on midnight.

The Coastguard was also called twice to boats in distress on Friday night and again one on Saturday night, says Simon.

A boat with a battery problem was towed in from near Pudney Rock about 9pm Friday and about 11.30pm Friday a boat off Arataki couldn't restart its engine and also required a tow home.

Late Saturday night a runabout off the Matakana bank was unable to restart its engine and required a tow. TECT Rescue was back in about 2.30am Sunday.

'They are all mechanical issues that are coming out at the end of the season, and they are all late at night,” says Simon.