Club Wyndham must meet WorkSafe demands before lending aquatic gear again following Appelbee family sea scare

Regulators have cracked down on the South-West hotel at the centre of the Dunsborough sea scare, issuing compliance notices after it hired water sports equipment to a family who were subsequently swept out to sea.

Club Wyndham is banned from lending any aquatic gear until it meets each regulatory demand issued by WorkSafe.

This comes two weeks after WorkSafe confirmed Club Wyndham — which hired paddleboards and a kayak to Joanne Appelbee and her three children Austin, 13, Beau, 12, and Grace, eight — was being investigated.

Club Wyndham have denied any wrongdoing, saying its staff had no reason to be concerned when the family, from Gidgegannup, didn’t return the equipment that they set off with from the hotel at 11am on January 30.

“As our guests are free to use resort equipment on a complimentary basis until late in the day, our staff had no reason to be alarmed,” a spokesperson said.

The Appelbee family was only rescued after 13-year-old son, Austin, swam 4km to shore to raise the alarm.

“I was fighting rough seas, the kayak dumped me a million times, I thought I saw something in the water and I was really scared but I was just thinking I was going to make it,” he said.

Austin eventually made it back to shore 2km up the beach from where he had set off. He sprinted back to the hotel where, at about 6pm, he used his mum’s phone to call triple-0.

A search was launched but it wasn’t until about 8.40pm that a rescue the helicopter spotted the family — more than 9 hours after they entered the ocean.

By then they had drifted approximately 14km out to sea.