No sooner had we got the Opua piece off to you than a truck lost its brakes going down the hill to the Russell ferry, entering and utterly destroying Opua Cruising Club. No one was hurt. Not the children waiting for the school bus who ran when they heard its approach, not the chap from the boat sales office, late for work. Not even the driver of the truck. The club house was filled with scoria, diesel and firetruck foam. Scary. Here are a couple of digital photos, BEFORE and AFTER.

The first shows Alan Jones of NZ Customs addressing a group in the clubhouse. The second shows the wreckage just ofter they'd pulled the truck out.

June 28th update:
The committee of the Opua Cruising Club - one of them a builder - surveyed the rammed building after it had been emptied of the truck and its spilled load of scoria and set to work. They spent a few hours cleaning up the mess, then hammered up a particle board partition. They managed to open the bar in what was left of the club by opening time that same afternoon, accessible from dock side. A new clubhouse is to be built in another location out of the trajectory of vehicles with brake failure.