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A father-of-three who died after his boat capsized during an annual fishing trip amid fierce Boxing Day storms had texted his wife during his harrowing final moments.
Robert Holden, 48, was with 11 other men on the 39ft boat in Moreton Bay, north of Brisbane, when the fierce storm hit about 4.50pm on Tuesday.
Holden and his companions David Logan and Stephen Tait died when their boat capsized. The others on board survived.
Mr Holden’s wife Michelle had texted him five minutes before the storm hit, asking if he was coming back because a “bad storm” was coming and she was worried.
“I texted Rob saying, ‘There’s a big storm coming, honey, I’m worried… are you still in the water?’ and he said, ‘Yes we are, it might be safer for us to stay here.’ “. ”,’ she said courier mail.
Rob Holden had texted his wife Michelle (pictured together) minutes before drowning while fishing with friends on Boxing Day.
Pictured are text messages between Robert Holden and his wife Michelle before he died when wild storms capsized their boat.
She then sent her husband a photo of the rain radar, but she didn’t hear from him until 5 p.m., when he dialed her pocket number.
When he tried to call her back, the line was busy.
“I was on the phone with my daughter… (she) called me and said, ‘Did you get a strange phone call from dad?’ and I said ‘yeah… what happened?’ and she said, ‘” “Mom, it sounded like I was under a bunch of blankets.”
She then received one last text message from her husband that said, “We hunker down.”
“(He) was trying to say ‘we’re screwed’ but he never swore, so I knew something was very, very wrong,” she said.
The 39ft boat (pictured) was hit by a wild storm that hit the southeast Queensland coast on Tuesday afternoon.
Mr Tait’s brother Andrew was also on board and survived; the ship was owned by a third Tait brother, Graham, who was back ashore.
At 4.45pm, when Mrs Holden had texted her husband, Graham Tait was also texting Stephen with the same concerns and asking if they would be back.
When the storm hit minutes later with enough force to blow out the ship’s glass windows, Mr. Holden and Stephen, described by Mrs. Holden as great friends who never left each other, were below deck.
Andrew Tait kept the cabin door open for them so they wouldn’t get trapped, but when the boat capsized the couple became disoriented.
Former Queensland rugby players David ‘Mario’ Logan (left) and Stephen ‘Taity’ Tait (right) also died in the boat tragedy.
Holden was remembered as a “good man through thick and thin” by his son Joshua.
Holden’s son Joshua said his father was found with a nasty injury to his forehead and believes he had hit his head and was unconscious when he drowned.
Police divers who later attended to the capsized boat did not find the couple for hours as the water turned “black” due to diesel fuel leaking from the boat.
Mrs Holden said her husband was “unrecognizable” when she had to formally identify his body.
Joshua described his father as a hero and said he believes he was trying to make sure the others on board were safe when he became trapped in the hull of the ship.
He said his father was “a good man through thick and thin” and the family’s “trusted provider.” He has launched a GoFundMe in support of his mother.