Father-of-three Peter Oberg, 45, has been missing since waves washed him and his two companions off a rocky platform into the water. One of the men, Damon Thorpe, 39, made it back to shore, while an exhausted and battered John Keith, 34, was lifted out of the water by a jet ski rescuer.

A triple-0 call brought emergency crews to the Seal Rocks location near Forster. A police siren alerted Andrew Oberg, 42, who left his holiday shack and met the police who took him to near the water's edge, where he abseiled down to the rocks.

He arrived to see his brother-in-law Mr Thorpe, with most of his clothes off, shivering with hypothermia. He gave him some clothes, as the surf ski and helicopter appeared at the scene.

"Andrew's looking out to sea and he saw a hand coming out of the sea,'' Mr Oberg's father, Leon, recounted on Friday.

"He's shouting. They've got mobile phones with limited coverage. Damon was the one that actually rung triple-0, but it was fading in and out, in and out.

''Emergency services got there and they saved John Keith. He was out to sea, hand in the air. That was the hand Andrew saw. He was sending sort of international signals, to go that way. The surf ski picked him up.

"Poor Peter, he was last seen floating face down in the water,'' Mr Oberg said. He was unsure whether it had been Mr Keith, or Mr Thorpe, who last saw his son.

''Andrew called us about 4.40pm [on Wednesday] and said he's gone. We couldn't believe it.''

Mr Oberg remembered his eldest son as a tower of strength in the town, a partner in an accountancy firm and triathlete.

His first fishing outing as a three year-old with his grandfather at Malua Bay on the south coast led to a lifetime in the sport, where he won national and international acclaim.

Mr Oberg's grief is keener with frustration Peter was not wearing a flotation vest.

''None of them were wearing flotation vests. They go up there every year, it was their annual holiday,'' Mr Oberg said.

''The forecast up there was for big swells, but they were around the corner near a lighthouse. It was fairly calm. They were in a place they regularly fish. No excuse for not wearing flotation gear, though,'' he said.

Peter Oberg went to extraordinary lengths to win fishing competitions, abseiling down huge cliff faces to rugged points where he hooked game fish so big he could barely carry them out.

He fished overseas and off Weipa, north west Queensland, and secured special permission from traditional owners of a location on the South and Western Australia border.

His wife Anne told the Goulburn Post: ''He was aware of the dangers but loved his fishing.”