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An Auckland sailor captured the frightening yet incredible moment his boat nearly got caught in the direct eye of a waterspout on Sunday, watching it roar past just a stone’s throw away.

Daniel Leech was out sailing on the Hauraki Gulf yesterday afternoon when a waterspout appeared from nowhere during a wild storm that smashed Auckland.

In jaw-dropping footage posted by Leech, the waterspout was seen coming barrelling toward the crew of five on board.

“Do you want to drop the main [sail]?” Leech’s colleague can be heard saying.

Leech told the Herald the main concern for the five-person crew was getting out of the way of the waterspout.

“The main thing was wondering what path it was going to take and where we needed to head to get away from it was the main thing. I had to make sure the crew were safe and have a plan if it came to the worst.

“We headed as fast as we could out of the path of it. It was looking like [it was coming] down the middle of the main channel which is where we were at at the time it formed, which was between Rangitoto and the main shoreline.

 “We knew we had to get the sails down to reduce the risk of any major disaster to boat and crew.”

A passenger on a nearby ferry happened to capture the moment Leech’s boat got agonisingly close to the waterspout, with one passenger heard saying: “It’s literally going to go right into that boat.”

This is the moment a sailing crew came close to the eye of a waterspout in Auckland. Photos / Daniel Leech, Jenna Smith

The video shows the spout coming close to Leech’s crew, with people on board the ferry worried for Leech.

A ferry passenger, who wishes to remain anonymous, said it felt like the waterspout was chasing them for a period of time and praised the skipper for getting them to safety.

“It was one of the coolest, wildest experiences of my life!

“It crossed over behind us and kind of followed us for a while before finally fizzling out! Was good our boat driver did a bit of a swift turn to get us out of the direct path!

“I was excited I felt like one of those crazy hurricane storm chasers in America. It was like a ‘wow nature is impressive moment’.

“Our ferry driver did a turn to kinda veer around it as well so we knew they had it under control.”

Waterspouts

Metservice forecaster Tuporo Marsters said waterspouts were similar to tornados, but occurred over water.

“They are an intense vortex column of air spinning around and are associated with thunderstorm clouds and very unstable conditions.

“The water gets disturbed so you get this spinning rotation, so anything in contact with it does get sucked up a little bit.”

He said there have been more than 7000 lightning strikes reported across the North Island between 10am and 5pm on Sunday.

A Birkenhead Point resident also captured the waterspout at about 4.20pm, looking back across at Takapuna.

The waterspout was about 500m off the coast when a Castor Bay resident also managed to capture footage of it.

“The kids were worried, but it basically tracked down the middle of the harbour.”