The body of a man who jumped off the floating crane in Wellington Harbour has been found.

Police have told how a man made a desperate attempt to rescue a friend who plunged to his death after leaping from the 45-metre-high Hikitia floating crane into Wellington Harbour.

The horrified man leapt into the chilly water fully clothed after his young Lower Hutt friend hit the water back-first before disappearing on Sunday morning.

The victim, who police are yet to name , met up with the friend in central Wellington at 3am on Sunday, Sergeant Brett Cuzens said.



After bars closed, they headed to Burger King before walking along the Wellington waterfront when the 20-year-old man decided to go for a swim shortly before 7am. "He had seen the crane and wanted to give it a crack."

He stripped to his boxer shorts, left his clothes on the wharf, and scaled to the top of the crane's towering boom while his friend waited halfway up the boom. The man leapt from the top of the crane but landed on his back in the water.

He would have jumped a horizontal distance of at least seven metres from the height of an 11-storey office block.

Passers-by called emergency services while the friend scrambled back down the crane and, fully clothed, leapt into the water to find his friend, whose body was lying on the seabed, Cuzens said.

His "traumatised" friend was still searching in the water when emergency services arrived.



Soon after the alarm was raised, the Westpac rescue helicopter scoured the harbour for about 30 minutes, joined by a police launch, as police, fire and ambulance staff looked on from the shore.

Police divers found the body about 10am on the sea floor directly below where he had jumped.

Cuzens said alcohol was a factor in his death, which would be referred to the coroner.

Police had identified the man and were contacting his next-of-kin.

The Crane Association of New Zealand issued a statement extending its condolences to the man's family.

"With the opening up of the Wellington waterfront jump-off spots, the Hikitia has become a target for young people out to prove themselves and [this] accident is an example of when things go wrong."

Maritime Heritage Trust of Wellington owns the crane. Trustee Malcolm McGregor said the boom was currently at a height of 45 metres, the same as 11 storeys.

To clear the crane's steel deck, the jumper would have had to have leapt a horizontal distance of seven to eight metres. The man would have had to jump from a steel beam that was hard to get purchase on, McGregor said.

"The example has been made and copycat jumping is dangerous."

A designer was investigating how to keep the vessel away from the wharf so people could not get aboard.

Last week, the trust asked "port contacts" for extra security on the crane, McGregor said.

"But I don't think it has quite happened."

He would not identify the port contacts but said the request followed vandalism on the vessel in recent weeks, including a broken driver's cab window above the deck.

He did not believe security would necessarily have stopped Sunday's incident.

The search:

(Photos: Ross Giblin)

(Photos: Deidre Mussen)