Cape Town - The capsized hull of a boat believed to be linked to a catamaran that went missing last year, is floating off the coast of Cape Town.
The hull was found and lost again in a desperate scramble at sea off the coast on Wednesday.
The upturned hull, believed to have been of the catamaran aboard which the skipper, Anthony Murray, 58, Reginald Robertson, 59, and Jaryd Payne, 20, had been sailing to Thailand in December 2014 and last January, was first spotted about a week ago by a Brazilian navy ship.
The families of the three men and their friends then launched a campaign to have the wreck recovered.
The NSRI last week placed a tracking device on the hull and then a tug, the Peridot, of the salvage company Smit, took the boat in tow.
While towing at low speed in the early hours of Wednesday, sea conditions turned poor, with a running swell and the yacht, a substantial sailing pleasure craft, appeared to have broken free from the tow line.
“I don’t think the hull had sunk, it probably broke free and is now floating in the swell somewhere,” said Captain Nigel Campbell, regional head of the South African Maritime Safety Authority on Wednesday.
The yacht, made of glass fibre, could not be considered a hazard to large vessels but best efforts had to be made to find it before a small boat such as smaller fishing vessels collided with it, Campbell said.
“It has two hulls, obviously, as it is a catamaran, and even if the one filled, the other would keep it floating. It is usually very difficult to get these plastic boats to sink,” he said.
“The tug has been ordered to continue searching until last light and then to resume the search at first light tomorrow (on Thursday),” Campbell said.
Campbell said the boat was not “100 percent” identified as the lost yacht Sunsail, but that comparisons with pictures of the Sunsail before it was lost and with drawings by the designer made officials 99 percent certain.
Meanwhile, family members of the lost men are believed to have gathered in Cape Town in the hope of inspecting the wreck and to see if anything could be learnt of the fate of the three lost sailors.
Cape Argus