Four people are confirmed dead and another is missing after a charter boat sank in gale-force winds off North Cape.
Five others, including the skipper, were rescued following the tragedy.
The group was returning from the Three Kings Islands northwest of Cape Reinga on Sunday night when mammoth seas engulfed the vessel near Murimotu Island.
Te Awamutu builder Mark Sanders has been confirmed as one of the victims.
Sanders had been planning the fishing charter with mates for more than a year - and phoned his family on Sunday night just hours before the tragedy to check in with them.
"He was on the trip of a lifetime," his father Graeme Sanders told Newshub. "He was doing what he loved."
The Northland Emergency Services Trust helicopter plucked five survivors to safety just after 11pm in a precarious nighttime mission.
Rescue helicopters, land search and rescue, police and commercial fishing boats learned of the Enchanter's plight just after 8pm on Sunday when a distress signal was set off.
Gale-force winds of 55 knots were slamming the boat just off North Cape, with 10 onboard.
Enchanter's skipper Lance Goodhew radioed in two hours later, then lost signal.
"They've come down the Surville cliffs and into shelter… and worn a big one and it's taken the wheelhouse off," said commercial fisherman Nat Davey, whose boat headed to the search area on Sunday night.
But it wasn't until after 11pm on Sunday the first rescue helicopter could get overhead; grounded until then by ferocious weather.
"They'd been in the water approximately four hours I'd say," Rescue Coordination Centre spokesman Nick Burt said. "Hypothermia would be setting in after that timeframe."
The skipper was among those winched to safety. Four bodies have now been recovered.
"Absolutely horrendous," Davey said of the weather conditions. "No one should've been out in that.
"When someone else puts their lives at risk and go out in the crap, we're the ones that get the phone call time and time again to come and help."
Newshub understands the group had been on a five-day charter with the popular Enchanter Fishing company in the Three Kings Islands.
Marlin fishing there is the best it's been in a decade.
But Davey questioned why they were out in those conditions.
"There's no excuse… with the way the weather forecasts are these days to take risks whether you're a small boat or a big boat," he said.
In a statement on Monday evening, Maritime New Zealand said the search for the final unaccounted for person would resume on Tuesday morning.
"This is an active search for the remaining person unaccounted for and the rescuers are focused on finding them and will explore every option. Police divers also arrived to the scene this evening and will be heading out tomorrow morning.
"Conditions tomorrow morning are expected to be favourable for the rescue effort."
