IIRC this guy was poorly prepared, not the right emergency equipment, what he did have was not working. Fine and dandy if you want to be a hero, but rescue crews had to go out and search for his remains in a nasty bit of water. And he's not the only one, ever year we have
'adventurers' that end up statistics in the sea, mountains, snow, rivers of our country - and most of the time it is avoidable.
p.s it's the Tasman.