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Video of family’s dramatic Atlantic rescue from Dove II is released

• Katy Stickland

The crew of the Tilly Mint, who answered a mayday call from the Coombes family on board Dove II, have released a video of the mid-Atlantic rescue

The crew of the Tilly Mint help rescue the Coombes family

25 January 2017

It was suppose to be a trip of a lifetime for the Coombes family from Newquay, Cornwall.

Instead, they were forced to abandon their yacht, Dove II, just weeks into their journey after rudder problems and heavy weather in the mid-Atlantic.

Read an account of the family’s ordeal in their own words below

Now a video of the rescue of James and Fran Coombes, their children, nine-year-old Heath and Isla, aged seven, along with family friend Tony White, has been released by those who saved them.

The British crew of the Discovery 67, Tilly Mint answered the Coombes’ Mayday call after days at sea with no rudder and no steering.

Fran, her two children and Tony White used Dove II’s life raft to transfer to Tilly Mint.

James was forced to abandon just moments later when the main sail sheet and the genoa sheet snapped and the ropes became wrapped around the prop.

The Coombes family is still appealing for help in tracing Dove II, and are offering a $10,000 reward for the safe recovery of the yacht and their possessions.

Dove II was last seen 460 nautical miles due east of Antigua in the Caribbean.

The family are currently recovering from their ordeal in St Martin.

12 January 2017

The dreams of the Coombes family were shattered on 21 December 2016 when following rudder failure, they were left with no option but to abandon their yacht, Dove II during heavy weather in the mid-Atlantic.

James and Fran Coombes and their children, nine-year-old Heath and Isla, aged seven, were just beginning their journey around the world when disaster struck.

Now the family, who are from Newquay, Cornwall, are offering a $10,000 reward for the safe recovery of the yacht and their possessions.

The Coombes last saw Dove II 460 nautical miles due east of Antigua in the Caribbean, and believe the yacht is “drifting towards the islands”.

They were on passage from Portugal to Barbados with a family friend, 71-year-old Tony White, when their rudder disintegrated and they were left with no steering.

Fran Coombes and her two children. Credit: Go Fund Me

With no way to control the 50-foot boat, they spent three days being punished by four to six metre waves while trying to jury rig an emergency rudder.

Describing the ordeal on her blog, Fran Coombes wrote: “This was not a good situation to be in, in fact it was everything I feared happening to us. The good news at this point, because when it goes wrong you’ve got to find some good, were that because the stock was still in place we weren’t taking on water, also the children though aware of what had happened were unconcerned and quickly fell asleep.”

“I was in a very dark place, we were side on (broad side) to the wind, which becomes very loud and very there when your not going with it but also to the swell, so we were rolling badly with the boat being knocked down with each set that came through, it was terrifying…”

The family contacted Falmouth Coastguard who coordinated with Fort de France in Martinique.

Missing sailor made his own way home after falling overboard

Within four hours, the 190-metre bulk carrier cargo ship, Newseas Jade, arrived on the scene and attempted to rescue the family.

But despite five attempts, the ship was unable to come alongside in the 30-knot winds.

“Newseas Jade prepared to come alongside, now it’s 2 in the morning, there is no moon, it’s basically pitch black and as they approached we realised the size of the vessel and what we were about to attempt. Newseas Jade is bulk carrier cargo ship, she is 190 meters long and over 30 metres wide, she is massive and in the dark, in a rolly sizeable sea, with no control of your own 16 metre boat to have this monster loom up and over you well it is truly scary,” recalled Fran Coombes.

“I was scared, Jim was scared, the kids just lost it and were screaming at us to make it go away. They then started firing ropes at us this was like having fireworks shot at you, James got on the engine and used the bow thrusters to try and manoeuvre us away from the ship, we were not going to grab those lines, and there was no way we were going to come alongside, we were rolling badly, but even the 190 metre ship was rolling as she was now broadside to the waves, we would be crushed and undoubtedly all end up in the sea,” she wrote.

The family were forced to abandon Dove II in the mid Atlantic. Credit: James Coombes/Facebook

Newsea Jade stayed with Dove II for 60 hours before another ship, Asia of Pearl, arrived to assist.

Again, the conditions meant that plans to fire lines to Dove II for a boat to boat transfer had to be abandoned.

Finally a Discovery 67 yacht, Tilly Mint responded to the Coombes’ plight.

Fran, Heath, Isla and Tony abandoned into a life raft leaving James on board Dove II.

“This one was a six man raft, it was tiny and you feel incredibly exposed and open to the elements, it’s sitting on a piece of plastic floating over 4000ft of sea? I got on my knees and James basically threw me Heath, he was so brave, I hadn’t witnessed him and James’s goodbye but he just sat where I told him, didn’t scream, didn’t cry, he just said “Mummy, I don’t like this”,” wrote Fran,

“Isla came down next and again she landed in my arms in the raft, she was very scared but she sat down next to Heath. I was saying things like “Its like a paddling pool!” But as I looked at their faces they were just scared and in the end I just said repeatedly “You’re fine, we’re going to be ok”

“Tony appeared in the raft and James cut us free, we were off the boat, we were in a life raft in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.”

Be Good Too, abandoned in 2004 off the US coast, washed up in Scotland

The crew of the Tilly Mint picked up the life raft’s line and Tony, Fran and her two children were transferred on board.

But that wasn’t the end of the family’s ordeal.

Just moments later the main sail sheet and the genoa sheet snapped on Dove II and the ropes became wrapped around the prop leaving James no options but to call for help.

“The boom was swinging dangerously around the cockpit, he put in a call to us, he was done, could we go back for him? YES! I looked at the captain, could we? He quickly turned the yacht round and we headed back for Jim, we were on our way,” wrote Fran.

“Bless him, he was a broken man, he was sat in the cockpit, the main sail was a mess where the lazy jacks were gone, the boom was swinging back and forth and there were ropes everywhere.”

“It was like the boat had totally rejected him but in a way it was saving him. He and the crew completed the transfer very quickly and that was it, we were rescued, all of us.”

The family are now safely in St Martin in the Caribbean trying to decide their next step.

Friends have launched a go find me appeal to raise £10,000 for the Coombes to help them rebuild their lives.

Practical Boat Owner

• Digital edition

Family appeal to find yacht abandoned mid-Atlantic

• Laura Hodgetts
• January 16, 2017

‘On the 15th day of our crossing our rudder completely disintegrated and we were left with no steering’

The abandoned yacht Dove II

A family from Newquay, Cornwall are appealing to the boating community for help in finding their yacht after being forced to abandon it during a transatlantic crossing.

James and Fran Coombes, their two children Heath (aged nine) and Isla (aged seven), and crew Tony White, were sailing their 15.8m (52ft) Hanse Sloop from England to the Caribbean, when they lost their rudder approximately 400NM east of Barbados.

The yacht Dove II was equipped with a satellite telephone which they used to contact the UK Coastguard in Falmouth, and the Coastguard in Martinique.

Skipper James battled 18ft seas and gales for three days and nights in an attempt to rig a temporary rudder, setting out drogues and fighting the elements before he made the decision to abandon his vessel and accept rescue from nearby vessels.

Merchant ships Newseas Jade and Asia Pearl attended and attempted rescue, before the Discovery 67 yacht Tilly Mint of Cowes arrived and successfully rescued the stricken family.

Dove II was in position 16° 31.92’N / 052°38.87’W on 21 December 2016 when it was abandoned at 1200 hours UTC.

In the family’s blog, Fran described the terror of ‘everything I feared happening to us’ when: ‘At 6.30 on the 15th day of our crossing our rudder completely disintegrated and we were left with no steering.’

Fran Coombes, with children Heath, aged nine and Isla, seven

She praised Falmouth Coastguard, saying: ‘I spoke to these guys a lot over the next few days and they were always really calming, really understanding and a great comfort.’

Fran added: ‘We had lost control of our boat, made one rudder which hadn’t worked and had been circled five times by an enormous cargo ship, firing lines to try to transfer us. We had thought we were going to be rescued, but it was cruel: the line was right there, you just couldn’t reach it. ‘That was a painful moment. I put the kids back to bed, but James, Tony and myself stayed up all night trying different ideas out. James didn’t stop once and proceeded to build a second rudder. He used the support pole for the radar and some floorboards, and hammered the base 90°, creating a “u” in which he screwed and glued the floorboards. This rudder was awesome, solid, but once again when we tried it, it was just too small and had no effect in the conditions that we were in. ‘At this point you could see all the disappointment on James: as much as he was trying, everything was failing and it was starting to beat him. I spent the night on the phone to the coastguard: they rang every half-hour and I would give our position and update them on all we were trying. They would offer suggestions but were basically doing welfare calls: “Are you safe? Are you looking after yourselves?” We were trying.’ window._taboolaSlots=window._taboolaSlots||[];window._taboolaSlots.push({"mode":"thumbnails-a-mid","container":"taboola-mid-article","placement":"Mid Article","target_type":"mix"});

James Coombes

When the British yacht Tilly Mint of Cowes arrived on scene, Fran, the children and Tony disembarked via a six-man liferaft. James stayed on board and tried to get the boat to point downwind, and hauled up the main. However, the mainsheet and lazyjacks snapped, and then the genoa sheet snapped. He managed to furl in the genoa, but dropping the main was too dangerous on his own, so that’s how he left it.

James left the diesel engine running to keep the batteries charged and the AIS system transmitting (MMSI number 232005948). Navigation lights were not left on. Dove II is described as having a light grey hull with a red bimini.

The Coombes family are currently ‘stuck in St Martin, in the Caribbean, trying to figure out how to move forward.’

James wrote on his blog that he had put out help posts on various sailing forums ‘in hope that someone comes back to me saying they’ve spotted the boat.’ He added: ‘Our only interest at the moment is to recover our boat and carry on with our journey.’

Read the blog at:  www.westerlyadventures.wordpress.com

$10,000 reward

The Seven Seas Cruising Association (SSCA), in partnership with the Caribbean Safety & Security Net and in the spirit of ‘cruisers helping cruisers’, is among those attempting to locate the Dove II . James Coombes is offering a $10,000 reward for the safe recovery of his yacht.

Glenn Tuttle, net manager for SSCA radio service KPK, said: ‘The SSCA applauds James for putting his family’s safety above risking their lives trying to save a severely disabled boat in challenging sea conditions during his transatlantic passage. We sincerely hope James is able to recover his vessel, and hope that all fellow mariners will assist him if possible.’ Rescued crew Tony White wrote on Facebook: ‘I have to say a very big thank-you to the following: Falmouth and Solent Coastguard Centres, Martinique Coastguard (known as CROSS), the captains and crews of Newseas Jade and Asia Pearl and the owners (Alex and Alison) and professional crew of Tilly Mint of Cowes , our Discovery 67 rescue boat, Andrew, Arwyn, Cat, Will and Dan. Their professionalism, generosity, compassion and support were overwhelming, and we will be forever in their debt.’

One of the rescue yacht crew members, Will Marks, has launched a crowd-funding campaign to assist the family, which has so far raised £2,550 of a £10,000 goal: www.gofundme.com/coombes-family-rescued-at-sea

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Bluewater rescue

Three days from landfall in barbados, a family adventure turned into a 60-hour ordeal, when the rudder came off hanse 531 dove ii ..

Fran Willcocks, stepfather Tony White and husband James Coombes plus their children Heath (9) and Isla (7) are all safely back on dry land after a dramatic rescue just before Christmas, but the story made harrowing reading on the family’s blog.

The problems began just three days out from landfall in Barbados, after the Hanse 531 Dove II had been at sea for 15 days on a fast crossing from Tenerife in the Canary Islands. The family had borrowed it from the owner for the cruise of a lifetime.

Tony told Sailing Today that the crew were all resting after dinner, before settling down to night watches, when there was a noise. “I can’t remember what it sounded like. But immediately James said we had lost the steering. Suddenly the yacht was out of control and we were beam-on to the seas.”

James, a carpenter and former Royal Navy diver, wasted no time in leaping off the stern with a mask to inspect the sterngear, and found that the glassfibre of the rudder had disappeared, leaving only the skeleton of the metal stock. It was a total and catastrophic loss of steering.

Tony said: “Within 20 minutes we phoned Falmouth who responded very quickly with caring questions, and within an hour they had contacted cargo ship Newseas Jade .”

Tony and James set about fashioning a jury rudder from the spinnaker pole and timber planks used for stowing fuel cans on the side deck. “There wasn’t enough mechanical advantage, but we couldn’t change that because of the length of the pole and the height of the transom,” said Tony.

By now, the 190m-long bulk carrier Newseas Jade had steamed up to their position to offer help, deck lights shining in the darkness. Initially, the crew was relieved, but the scale of the challenge they faced quickly became clear. Fran wrote on her blog afterwards: “In the dark, in a rolly, sizeable sea, with no control of your own 16m boat, to have this monster loom up and over you is truly scary. The kids just lost it and were screaming at us to make it go away. They then started firing ropes at us – this was like having fireworks shot at you.”

Realising the danger they were in, James used the bow-thrusters to pull away from the hull of the ship. The next plan was to haul people off using the fired lines, and pull them to the boarding ladder, but James and Fran decided this was out of the question for the children, and they called off further efforts for the night. The ship remained in eyeshot and called in regularly to check on Dove II .

“We agreed that we should do it together, or not at all,” said Tony.

Next morning, they tried again to build a jury rudder, glueing and screwing two of the cabin sole boards together, bending some stainless steel tubing around it, all lashed at the waterline. “We just couldn’t keep it in the water – it was so frustrating,” said Tony.

Fran “saw” the disappointment in James: “As much as he was trying, everything was failing and it was starting to beat him.”

By now, the wind was blowing around 30kt and the sea state had risen – Tony estimated the swell height was around 9m. The next plan was to try to ease the motion of the boat and bring her back to point downwind, towards Barbados, instead northwest with the weather on the beam.

“Falmouth coastguard prompted us to put out a drogue with a sail bag [on a bridle] to steer the boat,” said Tony. “We could move the lines, but there was no response from the boat.”

They moved the lines about, experimented with a “handkerchief of jib” and the mainsail, used the bow-thruster, but nothing succeeded in changing the boat’s course for long – she remained steady at 1-2kt to the northwest, in a corkscrewing sea.

Another sickening night passed while another ship in the vicinity steamed up to the scene. The Asia Pearl V was also a bulk carrier and at 180m LOA, she could offer no solutions that Newseas Jade had not already tried. “At that point, I thought we would probably have a very long wait for some suitable [craft] to reach us. There was no water ingress, and the Coastguard said the boat was the safest place to be.”

Nonetheless, the crew was finding it hard to sleep or eat, and the terrible pitching and rolling of the boat made the children sick. In the stress of the situation, Heath developed a nosebleed. James had another idea for how to sail downwind, and, still confident of rescue, asked Fran to stay aboard to help him sail to safety after the children and Tony had been evacuated. Fran describes in heart-rending detail how she refused: “I love him, I want to stay with him, I want to be this awesome wife who isn’t scared and can just wave my children off and then help bring our home to safety… but I can’t. I don’t want to let him down but I don’t want to be here anymore; I am done, I am exhausted, terrified and now a crappy wife.”

By now, Falmouth Coastguard had managed to raise another boat in the vicinity – a sloop called Tilly Mint , 80 miles to leeward of Dove II . Initially believing her to be a 40-footer, the crew were delighted when she finally appeared on their AIS display and turned out to be a Discovery 67 with a professional crew. Fran described her relief when they finally crackled over the VHF, asking first after the children. She said: “I immediately loved them: someone else was looking out for my kids.”

Tilly Mint ’s Texan skipper Andrew Kaiser noted in the log arriving on the scene around 2130 after an “aggressive” beat upwind in 18-32kt. After the relentless drive of the day, the hardest thing was taking the time to analyse the situation. Andrew decided to attempt the rescue at first light. “We could take the six hours to wait for light. It was the right call.” 

Next morning, Newseas Jade moved into position to provide a lee for the yachts. Tony reported an immediate calming effect, but Andrew on Tilly Mint found the huge ship at close quarters only added to the stress, without reducing the seas. The Coast Guard in Fort de France thought the ship’s lee would make it possible for the two yachts to go alongside one another for the transfer. “This would have been certain disaster,” said Andrew. “The point is to think for yourself and to make the call you feel is best.”

An initial plan to launch Tilly Mint ’s tender was quickly dismissed as too dangerous. Instead, Dove II tried unsuccessfully to float a line downwind to Tilly Mint on a fender. They managed to send a line across however. “At that moment the boats surged dangerously close together and our masts nearly slapped in the roll,” Andrew said. “It was a real close call. In fact, the masts would have hit except that they weren’t lined up. I really thought I had a safe amount of distance between us, and it is incredible how fast things got out of control.”

Plan B was to put the family into one of Dove’ s liferafts, and have them float down on Tilly Mint , which worked well. Tony reported that it was relatively simple to step off the stern into the raft, and found its motion “a lot more comfortable” than that of the boat. The children and Fran had a different view, with Fran describing how flimsy the raft felt.

There was more heartbreak as they watched James, still on board Dove II , setting the sails and trying to turn downwind. Fran described the strain of the past 60 hours overcoming her when Tilly Mint ’s crew Arwyn Kaiser handed her an improbably warm, fluffy towel. “I realised I was too old for all this. To me, at this stage in my life I’m not interested in adventures or risk; I literally would be happy and content if I could reach this skill level of laundry.”

The final twist in the tale occurred 10 minutes later when James called Tilly Min t on the VHF to report that both the jib and main sheets had parted, wrapping the prop, and that he was finally abandoning Dove II . “The boat was telling him to leave,” Andrew commented. James asked rather sheepishly if he could bring the children’s surfboards with him. “This seemed to break the tension of the whole morning,” Andrew noted. “We found ourselves laughing and crying over the radio. The second transfer went smoothly, and I am happy to say we have safely transferred three adults, two children, two surf boards, two cases of milk, one eukalele, two bottles of gin and a bottle of rum (partial).”

They made landfall in Le Marin, Martinique three days later, in time for the children to celebrate Christmas on dry land. And as Sailing Today went to press, James was still planning to salvage the yacht with help from wellwishers in St Maarten. The boat was abandoned around position 16 ° 21N, 15 ° 27W, with the AIS transmitting, lights burning and the engine ticking over to charge batteries. It is estimated that the boat had seven days of fuel aboard, meaning that it probably went dark at the end of December. James is offering a $10,000 reward to anyone who helps him locate the yacht, thought to be drifting near the BVIs. He has set up a crowdfunding appeal to cover salvage costs, and at the time of writing had raised around £2,700.

Tilly Mint sustained some minor sail damage during the upwind beat, but was otherwise unscathed. She arrived in Martinique just in time to turn around and take on charter guests.

Tilly Mint belongs to the brother of ST editor Sam Fortescue

Blog and appeal site Fran Willcocks’ blog is online: westerlyadventures.wordpress.com Their funding site is: gofundme.com/coombes-family-rescued-at-sea

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Rescue: vessel still missing but family is safe

• January 22, 2017

Being forced to abandon ship in the middle of the Atlantic , the thought of that should strike fear into most sane mariners. Oceans are vast, and life rafts seem pretty insignificant and flimsy when seen bobbing around in them. Unfortunately, leaving their boat/slash home to enter a life raft is exactly what one family recently did, and understandably, it made the news here in the Caribbean.

BOLO – Be on the lookout

“ Keep a lookout for the sailing vessel Dove II ,” that’s what mariners in the Eastern Caribbean were instructed to do. The rough story I received was that a family had been forced to abandon ship mid- Atlantic , and that their boat was left to drift on its own. Without delving in to the details of exactly what went on, I shared the news post on our Facebook page , hoping to spread the word for those involved. As you might imagine, the story brought out all the armchair sailors who were quick to pass judgement from the safety of their warm and stable houses, or their comfortable salons.

Credit to Monday Never for the excellent video.

This morning I watched a video put together by the folks from Monday Never who were onboard the vessel Tilly Mint , the yacht that rescued the displaced family. It’s a well-done video, and one worth watching, as it contains a number of lessons. In my opinion, the people involved with the rescue did a great job, and have my complete respect. The back side of the story — what went on prior to the rescue — can be found on the Coombes family’s website .

Before you post a comment with some “They should have done this…” admonition, make sure that you first watch the video, and read the family’s account of the incident in its entirety. And then truly ask yourself, what could you have done differently?

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Thank you so much for sharing! Hopefully with all of us working together, we can help this wonderful family get their boat back. – Lots of love, Cat (Monday Never)

No thanks necessary, Cat. Best wishes to all!

There is video by s/v Delos on YouTube which details their abandon ship procedures, and of course the movie “All is Lost” shows a well prepared sailor working through many problems. They appear to be totally unprepared for an ocean crossing (or worse). Mike has a post about emergency rudders written some time ago, read it. I suspect they don’t have a Jordan series drogue, paper charts, can navigate without GPS, 6 months food and water, a plan to deal with a large hole in the boat and many other things I consider essential for even a short ocean voyage . People seem to think they can expect help on the ocean, don’t. You need to plan to be totally self sufficient. I could be much harsher but I will stop now, just my 2 pence worth….

You’re kidding about the “All is Lost” movie, right?

>>You’re kidding about the “All is Lost” movie, right? yes and no, by that I mean the movie is Hollywood at its worst. It does show some safety aspects that I consider important many readers probably ignore. 1) Do you have fiberglass repair material on board or a suitable replacement (like carbon fibre squares of tape 1m square) so you can make it to port. 2) Can you climb the mast? if you haven’t done so before leaving on the voyage the middle of the ocean is not the place to learn, Do you have the equipment on board to do this? 3) Expect and plan for a major issue(s) and you won’t lose your home.

To be clear about my last statement, even if their boat is found afloat…. once it is abandoned it is considered salvage. They no longer own it.. Sorry to be un-PC.

Bill. While the things you mention are valid, that movie was horrible! I couldn’t stop screaming at the TV. They could have paid ANY 1st-year cruiser a case of beer to consult with them and it would have ended up better.

no arguments, I said it was Hollywood at its worst. So much misinformation and drama. Try lighting a flare in a rubber boat, slag will…. you know the story. You won’t ever get me in a life raft to die. Made my boat unsinkable, not Titanic unsinkable the real deal.

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Rescue in the Atlantic

• By Kim Kavin
• Updated: April 10, 2017

Capt. Andrew Kaiser was hundreds of miles offshore, hoping the latest plan would work. Seas were 5 to 10 feet with an occasional 15-footer, and the 600-foot cargo ship was in position, attempting to create a breakwater. Kaiser tried to bring his 67-foot Discovery Tilly Mint alongside Dove II , a 56-foot sloop that had lost her rudder two days earlier.

But as Tilly Mint neared, the yachts both rolled. Their masts nearly collided. Kaiser backed off, watching the captain of the 30,000-ton freighter also work to maintain control, close enough to crush them all.

There was no more denying it: The family had to climb into their life raft and set adrift on faith that Tilly Mint would save them. Everything else had been tried and failed. “It’s a hard thing to ask a family to do,” Kaiser says.

The mother, her 71-year-old stepfather and her two children climbed in. They left the father behind. The kids were just 7 and 9 years old.

12:10 on December 20

The summer charter season had been outstanding. Tilly Mint spent it in Norway, cruising through the foggy, majestic fjords that span the Scandinavian coastline, keeping a lookout for whales and cruising as far north as the Arctic Circle. The crew had seen parts of the planet, and experienced a level of grandeur, that most other human beings can only imagine.

But summer had turned to winter, and the ­Caribbean season beckoned. The crew had to get Tilly Mint over to St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the southern Caribbean, where they were scheduled to pick up charter clients on December 26 for a New Year’s holiday aboard.

Prepping for the crossing felt ­routine to Kaiser and his crew. Transatlantics were standard stuff for Tilly Mint , a 2009 build that regularly chases the seasonal sun. Kaiser and his wife, Arwyn, who serves as chef and mate, had crossed the Atlantic a half-dozen times on Tilly Mint and once more aboard a previous yacht. They had heard of other boats getting into trouble out there — search parties, sinkings, nothing to take lightly — but they had always crossed without incident, never finding themselves in trouble or in a position close enough to assist any of the boats that did encounter misfortune.

The Kaisers, along with crew members Dan Fox, Catherine Marks and Will Marks, were in a sort of relaxed state of making haste. After doing maintenance in England, weather delays held up their start date. They were confident in the undertaking, but they also felt mounting pressure. They were looking at about 4,600 miles ahead, as the crow flies, with a hard deadline that would have charter clients standing on the dock, waiting for them with luggage and vacation dreams, whether Mother Nature cooperated or not.

“I severely underestimated how difficult this was going to be. You learn about this in captain’s training, but once you’re there, emotions enter the picture. You suddenly realize that there are serious consequences at stake, a human element — this is absolutely frightening.” Capt. Andrew Kaiser Advertisement var lazyAdMiddle3 = {}; lazyAdMiddle3.id = "gpt-passback-middle3"; lazyAdMiddle3.callback = function () { googletag.cmd.push(function() { var bonnierAdMiddleSlot3 = googletag .defineSlot( '/22595167374/yachtingmagazine', [[970, 250], [728, 90], [300, 250], [320, 50]], 'gpt-passback-middle3' ) .addService(googletag.pubads()) .setTargeting('pos', 'middle3'); var middleMapping = googletag.sizeMapping() .addSize([1615, 0], [[970, 250], [728, 90]]) .addSize([1295, 0], [[728, 90]]) .addSize([1010, 0], [[300, 250]]) .addSize([780, 0], [[728, 90]]) .addSize([0, 0], [[336, 280], [300, 250], [320, 50]]) .build(); bonnierAdMiddleSlot3.defineSizeMapping(middleMapping); apstag.fetchBids( { slots: [bonnierAdMiddleSlot3], timeout: 2000 }, function(bids) { apstag.setDisplayBids(); googletag.pubads().refresh([bonnierAdMiddleSlot3]); } ); googletag.display('gpt-passback-middle3'); }); }; lazyAds.push(lazyAdMiddle3);

So they pushed it. They stopped for just three hours to fill the yacht’s tanks and reprovision their stores in the Canary Islands before setting a course for the Atlantic’s other side.

“It was a big, stressful moment, as it is for many charter yachts,” Kaiser says. “You have this whole ocean to cross and a million things that can happen, and you have to make a timeline on the other end.” Thankfully, Mother Nature took a shine to them, and they got to experience the thrill that comes with another of life’s great cruising pleasures: hour after hour of the yacht, the wind and the sea all working together as one, with land nowhere in sight. It was Tilly Mint and the Atlantic, in perfect harmony.

“Finally, it all starts to turn our way, the wind fills in, we’re flying, we have both headsails pulled out, we’re heading downwind, and we finally felt like our luck had turned,” Kaiser says. “We were going so fast that we might even have an extra day when we got there to clean the boat up and rest a little before the charter, maybe have a beer.”

They were about three days out from their Caribbean landing, surfing down waves at speeds that even they couldn’t believe — they took one at 19.9 knots, Kaiser says, still excited to describe the feeling a number of weeks later. The distance they were covering was impressive too: day after day of 220- to 230-mile passages. It was the fastest they had ever covered that much water on a transatlantic crossing.

“Everyone was in good spirits, and lunch was just about to come up, and the crew were hovering around, waiting like they always do,” Kaiser says. “And all of the sudden, the satellite phone rings.”

It was 12:10 on December 20, about 600 miles east of the Caribbean archipelago.

“We all stared at the phone,” he says. “It was the first time this phone had rung in three years. We weren’t expecting to take a phone call in the middle of the Atlantic.”

Aboard Dove II

The Coombes family had been enjoying their sail too. Dolphins had put on a show in their wake, followed by a few whales, as they made way from ­Portugal to the Canary Islands. According to the family’s blog, the kids had overcome some initial seasickness, the tuna fishing had turned out to be great, and Dove II was making solid time, covering some 160 miles at 11 knots. They finished their first week out of the Canaries unscathed, but the mom worried as many mothers do.

She wrote on the ­family’s blog : “This next week is the one I’m dreading, the middle one, the one when you’ve already done ages but you’re still not halfway, the one where you’re in the middle of the ocean as far from anything as possible.”

As things turned out, her premonition was off by about 24 hours. Day 15 was when Dove II somehow lost her rudder, in 20- to 30-knot winds. The yacht rolled hard. The swell repeatedly knocked it down. After about an hour of enduring the pounding, the mom pressed the preprogrammed button on the satellite phone. Falmouth Coast Guard answered and began to coordinate with the Coast Guard out of Martinique, on the other side of the ocean.

About four hours later, the 600-foot cargo ship Newseas Jade arrived. Plan A was for the ship to come alongside Dove II and drop some lines for the family to climb up. At about 2 in the morning. In the pitch-black darkness. In roiling seas.

The kids started screaming as the ship bore down, firing its lines toward the family. The mom, on the family’s blog, described the moment as “like having fireworks shot at you.”

They feared the massive ship would crush them. From their perspective, they were sitting ducks in the looming shadow of a leviathan.

What, they wondered, was Plan B?

Beating Their Way Back

When the shock wore off that their sat phone was ringing in the middle of nowhere, Tilly Mint ‘s crew answered the call. It was the Falmouth Coast Guard. A cargo ship had picked up Tilly Mint ‘s AIS signal, and when the ship did its routine data upload, the Coast Guard realized that Tilly Mint was near Dove II . Even in hindsight, Kaiser is impressed by the technology’s accuracy: “They were only off by about 10 miles on our position when they called.”

The Coast Guard told Kaiser that Dove II was 17 miles to windward. The cargo ship had moved to Plan B after coming close alongside the sailing yacht nearly a half-dozen times; now they were talking about the family getting into an inflatable life raft that would sit alongside the mammoth ship in the churning seas — a thought that terrified the family to the point that the mom got back on the sat phone and begged the Coast Guard to make it all stop.

And so, the Tilly Mint crew was asked if they would be willing to render assistance.

“Of course, this isn’t really a question — of course the answer is yes, no matter what,” Kaiser says.

Kaiser spun Tilly Mint ‘s wheel and headed upwind.

“It was like a different world,” he says. “It was a lot for the boat. We definitely wouldn’t have pushed the boat that hard if it wasn’t an emergency.”

“You are the one on scene, not the coast guard. They did nothing wrong; they are authorities. They save people’s lives for a living. I’m a charter yacht captain. But if we’d done what they said, it would’ve been really bad. You have to make your own calls out there after consideration.” Capt. Andrew Kaiser

For the next 10 hours, Tilly Mint made 8 knots at best, with spray coming over the bow the whole time.

“We were on our side with the motor at full rpm, going into it the best we could,” he says. “It ended up being a marathon.”

The total distance covered to reach Dove II ended up being 88 miles; Tilly Mint sailed about 80 of them, and Dove II drifted the rest of the way.

“When we got there, it was moonless, cloudy, one of those dark and scary nights,” Kaiser says. “There wasn’t much to be seen. We were doing our best to triangulate their drift and our course to intercept them. We could hear the big cargo ship transmitting and relaying a message, so we called them.

“We could see the cargo ship on AIS, and we could see their lights, but the sailboat had just an anchor light on,” he adds. “It looked like a star on the horizon until we were about a half-mile from them. We got right up next to them with our deck lights on, and they saw us and hopefully felt a little relief.”

Everyone decided that attempting Plan C at night was a bad idea.

“After 10 hours of rushing and getting there, and the mission is to get these people aboard and safe, it’s really hard to say, ‘We’re going to wait six more hours for daylight,’” Kaiser says. But that’s what they did, heaving to with a crew member on watch to guard against drift.

“At one point in the night, we sailed back to them and hove to again,” Kaiser says.

By morning, the Coast Guard out of Martinique had put Tilly Mint in charge, Kaiser says: “Just before sunrise, we all got our heads on straight. We were the small yacht that got to call the big cargo ship and say, ‘This is what we want you to do.'”

Plan C for the family — the first attempt by the crew of Tilly Mint — was that Tilly Min t would lower her tender and transfer the family. But the father, Kaiser says, didn’t want to abandon his ship. According to the family’s blog, the journey had been his idea, part of a childhood dream of sailing the world.

“I had to have a conversation with him about it,” Kaiser says. “Everybody was advising him that it was not a good idea. We were going to leave ­immediately — we had to make our charter. We didn’t want to leave him, but we weren’t going to hang around. He had a really tough call to make.”

For Kaiser, it was not the father’s hesitation, but instead the cargo ship that made him most nervous.

“Something that big with that little control — the captain, bless him, stayed with that family the whole time, and sat there for three days and called them every night to let them know he was there — there’s nothing that crew could have done better, but the fact is that it’s a big, rolling monster with minimal control,” Kaiser says. “They’re the most dangerous thing in the story.”

The Coast Guard notified Tilly Mint that it wanted the cargo ship to create a breakwater, hoping an artificial lee would allow the family to get off Dove II safely. Kaiser spoke with the family about that plan, and about what Plan D would be if it didn’t work.

“We were nervous, we knew they were nervous, so we wanted to act very quickly,” Kaiser says. “If there is a sufficient lee, we will quickly drop our tender and pick you guys up, and then get out of Dodge. But if it doesn’t work, we want you to inflate your life raft and put everybody in it, and we’ll make the transfer then. Initially, we said we would try to collect a line from them so that they would never be in open seas when they cut the line to their boat. We attempted this, but that was a mistake, a bad decision — you lose maneuverability. You’re too close to the other boat.”

Seas were rising. Winds were pounding. The cargo ship moved to windward of the yachts.

“We had a timeline that we had to make this happen before the ship drifted back down on us and killed us and caused damage,” Kaiser says.

But alas, Plan C failed. The cargo ship was able to block the wind, but not the waves.

“We realized the ship was not going to help, so we did not launch our tender,” Kaiser says. “We told them to launch their life raft.”

That’s when the family cut themselves loose from Dove II , with the mother, stepfather and kids adrift, leaving the father behind. He didn’t want Dove II to become a salvage, if she would ever be found at all. He thought he still might be able to save his family’s yacht.

Kaiser brought Tilly Mint alongside the life raft. He couldn’t heave to, to ease the yacht’s rolling, so the crew struck Tilly Mint ‘s sails.

“It was scary,” Kaiser says. “We had them alongside our boarding gate on the side. One of my crew members said, ‘Andrew, I think I can grab one of the kids. Should I go for it?’

“The next time we rolled, I saw him almost disappear into the life raft, and he came back up onto our deck with the 7-year-old girl.”

The children, Kaiser says, were by that point courageous and ­composed. The mother and her stepfather were too.

“The next time we rolled,” ­Kaiser says, “Will was on our deck. He reached over and pulled the other kid out. They passed us a couple of rucksacks, and then grandpa and mother stepped aboard.” The mom went belowdecks, sat at Tilly Min t’s helm station and called her husband. He had not changed his mind. He told her to set sail without him.

“We sailed past the vessel one last time and waved,” Kaiser says. And then, he pointed the bow toward the Caribbean.

Tilly Mint got about 3 miles downwind, with the crew just about to set the sails, when a call came from the father. In trying to get Dove II sailing again, he had parted his main sheet, which was now in the water and jammed into the prop. He had finally come to realize, he said, that he needed to abandon his ship. Would Tilly Min t go back for him?

“Of course,” Kaiser says, “we did.”

The second recovery went smoothly, with the ­father repeating the life-raft drill and no cargo ship in the mix. With the whole family aboard, Tilly Mint made way for Martinique, arriving at 21:00 December 23, three days before the start of the Caribbean charter.

“The whole family, even the little kiddos, they helped us with everything, the cleaning and polishing,” Kaiser says. “They were just such good people.”

15:52 January 27

Dove II is presumed afloat at sea. The family, living aboard a boat in Sint Maarten, has had a few hopes raised and then dashed, thinking she’d been sighted but had not. Drift patterns suggest she might be near Anegada in the British Virgin Islands. They are hitching a ride on a catamaran to go take a look.

The son just turned 10. He spent his birthday playing on water toys with his sister and celebrating with cake. His mother and father were both there, in the photos on their blog, as he turned a year older. The boy’s baby photos, like his sister’s, are aboard Dove II . Somewhere, hopefully, still out there.

Lessons Learned

When the new year’s charter aboard Tilly Mint ended, Kaiser made a list of lessons learned.

Have multiple ideas: The crew arrived on scene faster than expected, so they used the time to plan. “We all sat around and talked through the best options, not one way to do this, but every way that we could conceivably do it. We didn’t want to become casualties ourselves, and we didn’t want to kill anyone else.”

Adapt: “If what you thought would work is not working, then stop and reassess.”

Beware cargo ships: “It’s a big, moving city that will just pummel your boat. There was only added danger. I mean that with as much respect as possible for the cargo ship and the Coast Guard. It just didn’t do any good for us.”

Be alert: “We’re coming alongside them and trying to get close enough to catch a line because we don’t want them to have to cut themselves loose at sea. This was a mistake. Their boat surfed down two waves consecutively and ended up 100 feet from us, and then the boats rolled toward each other. Even at 100 feet distance, we had a really close call with our masts.”

Maintain space: “Every captain knows that this is dangerous, but how fast those boats closed the distance, and how close those masts came, you need a really large safety buffer. You need much more than you might think.”

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The yacht Dove II was equipped with a satellite telephone which they used to contact the UK Coastguard in Falmouth, and the Coastguard in Martinique. Skipper James battled 18ft seas and gales for three days and nights in an attempt to rig a temporary rudder, setting out drogues and fighting the elements before he made the decision to abandon his vessel and accept rescue from nearby vessels. Merchant ships Newseas Jade and Asia Pearl attended and attempted rescue, before the Discovery 67 yacht Tilly Mint of Cowes arrived and successfully rescued the stricken family. Dove II was in position 16° 31.92’N / 052°38.87’W on 21 December 2016 when it was abandoned at 1200 hours UTC.

In the family’s blog, Fran described the terror of ‘everything I feared happening to us’ when: ‘At 6.30 on the 15th day of our crossing our rudder completely disintegrated and we were left with no steering.’

Read the family's blog.

She praised Falmouth Coastguard, saying: ‘I spoke to these guys a lot over the next few days and they were always really calming, really understanding and a great comfort.’

Read the full story.

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Latest waypoints, latest news, yacht abandoned in atlantic.

On Dec 21, 2016, the s/y "Tilly Mint" rescued the crew of five of the "Dove II" which was damaged by a storm off Martinique. At 7.30 p.m., the CROSS AG was contacted by its French CROSS counterpart, relaying the distress call of the English sailboat which had lost its rudder in the middle of the Atlantic. She was located about 1000 km east of Fort-de-France. The weather conditions were particularly harsh with a swell of up to six meters. There were two children on board, and the 17-meter sailboat was drifting helpless in the storm. The skipper was in contact with the English maritime authorities who provided moral support and technical advice. The CROSS diverted the cargo m/v "Newseas Jade", underway to Lagos, to the yacht. She arrived non Dec 18 at 1:20 a.m. The weather conditions during Dec 19 make evacuation attempts very delicate and several attempts failed. The vessel agreed to remain close to the sailboat in order to act as a breakwater and to monitor the development of the situation. The CROSS then asked the "Asia Pearl V" to assist too. She arrived on zDec 20 at 7:30 a.m. Protected by the other freighter, she attempted several maneuvers to approach the yacht in very hard sea conditions. These failed too, and the CROSS then asked the merchant ships to stay in the area until another sailboat, the "Tilly Mint", reached the scene. Protected by the two cargo ships, the crew of the "Dove II" embark on their liferaft which was immediately recovered by the "Tilly Mint". None of them required medical assistance. The "Dove II" was left adrift, and the two cargo ships have resumed their initial voyages after their help help to safeguard the lives of the five boaters. The "Tilly Mint" should arrive with the family on board in the Caribbean arc for Christmas. French report with photo: http://la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/martinique/5-plaisanciers-dont-2-enfants-sauves-du-naufrage-mer-caraibes-427505.html

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Caribbean, BVIs: Search for Cruising Family’s Abandoned Yacht

On December 21st, 2016, cruising yacht “Dove II”, owned and loved by the Coombes family from the UK, had to be abandoned near the end of her TransAtlantic from the Canaries with rudder failure close to Barbados. The family has been searching for their home ever since. The cruising community is asked to be on the lookout for the drifting Dove II in the Leeward Islands, Caribbean Sea.

Published 8 years ago, updated 5 years ago

Latest drift analysis from Chris Parker:

Based on an assumption that nothing on board has changed since the abandonment, calculations for the approximate location of Dove II tomorrow (January 18, 2017) near 19-12N/64-20W (about 30 miles North of the island of Anegada in the BVI).

Yacht Details:

Name : Dove II (UK flag)

Type : Hanse 531 (sloop)

Colour : Light grey hull, red anti foul, teak deck, white topsides

Characteristics : Burgandy/Maroon mainsail cover, spray hood, bimini (with a white patch in the middle) and genoa UV strip (Genoa is furled).

Surfboards in whiteboard bags on the port and stbd quarter’s, look like dodgers.

2x dive cylinders on the port quarter, 1 yellow 1 white.

White mainsail up with 2 reefs in, the main sheet snapped so the boom will be flapping around.

Abandoned at Position: 16 31.92 N / 052 38.87 W

Date : December 21st, 2016 at 1200 hours UTC.

Report – as told by owner and skipper, James Coombes:

On the 4th of December, 2016, we set off from Tenerife in our 53-foot yacht with a crew of 5. Myself, my wife, our 2 children aged 7 & 9 and my stepfather in law.

Like most yachts crossing last year, we struggled the first week, with light winds down to 20 30. The second week the trades blew a steady 20-30 knots which meant we made up for the time lost from the first week. Fifteen days into the crossing and all was looking good for arrival in Barbados on the eve of the 21st – giving us a few days to prepare for Christmas, which the kids were super-excited about. We also had friends staying in Barbados who’s children couldn’t wait for us to arrive so we could all go surfing on Christmas Day together.

At 1830 on December 19th we were cruising along at 8-12 knots with a poled out Genoa when we heard a horrible crunching sound. Suddenly the boat slewed around 90 degrees with the autohelm alarm sounding. My initial thoughts were that the autopilot had disconnected from the rudder post, but when I tried turning the wheel and not getting any response, my heart sank as I thought I’d lost the actual rudder. We quickly furled in the Genoa, then I donned my dive mask and jumped off the stern with a dive torch to take a look. I took one look under the stern and saw that the rudder post and framework were still intact but the actual grp had completely delaminated and had torn off. Nightmare!!

So now we were broad-side on to a 3-5 meter swell and 30 knots of wind – not good. Over the next 6 hours, we made many attempts at trying to head back downwind. I made a temporary rudder with the spinnaker pole and timber planks. With the wind and the swell nothing worked. We tried to point into the wind to make it more comfortable, but the boat would only sit 90 degrees to the wind and swell.

So – rolling badly and very close to numerous knock-downs, my wife was feeling the situation wasn’t safe enough for the kids and she wanted to get them off the boat. We called Falmouth Coastguard on the sat phone for assistance.

Help arrives

In the early hours, we had a 190m cargo vessel on the scene to assist. They wanted to give us a Lee and throw lines down then pull us alongside. Even on their Lee side with the swell and them rolling made the situation far too dangerous to attempt. I could see it all going horribly wrong, and every time they came around to fire lines at us, I had to use my engine to get out of their way. The language barrier between the cargo ship captain and myself made it difficult to communicate clearly. He was trying his hardest to get close and help, but all I was thinking was if we’re alongside and he rolls on us, or my spreaders collided with his hull, it would all end disastrously.

The coastguard then re-routed another cargo vessel to come and assist. When it was daylight and we were waiting for them to arrive, I pulled down the stainless pole that supports our radar dome on the stern and bolted 2 floorboards – which I had glued and screwed together – to the pole to make another temporary rudder. We couldn’t find a way of securely fixing it to the transom though and with the swell bouncing us around it just wouldn’t work properly. When the second cargo vessel arrived later in the morning it turned out to be 180m, so we went through exactly the same scenario as we had before. This was meant to be an easier transfer, but the dangers were exactly the same.

So after another stressful day of having a 180m cargo vessel bearing down on us and firing lines at us, all attempts failing, we were no closer to disembarking my now, very fraught, crew. The kids were very seasick after 24 hours of horrific rolling and sliding sideways down waves. None of us had slept or eaten properly.

At the end of day 2, the coastguard informed us that another sailing vessel was within 80nm of our position and they were turning around to come to our assistance.

My plan all along was to safely disembark my wife, kids, and father in law. I was going to stay on board and try and drift in on the boat nearer to land then try and sort a tow out.

Whilst we were awaiting the arrival of the rescue yacht, the 2 cargo vessels stayed close by us to keep a safe eye on us. I’m very grateful for their patience.

So on the 3rd night, the yacht arrived. We all felt that attempting the transfer in the dark wouldn’t be a good idea, so we waited for sunrise.

After another very uncomfortable night, the weather was forecast to ease off in the morning. As the sun rose the wind and the swell was still present with winds gusting to 28knts and a 2-4 m swell. Launching the other yacht’s dinghy was out of the question, the only safe way we saw was to send my family across in a life raft.

They all took a rucksack each then I loaded them up in the life raft and cast them off for the other yacht to pick them up. A very emotional moment I can tell you.

Alone on the boat

So now alone on the boat I tried everything to get her to point downwind. With going full astern trying for the prop walk to turn me before pulling the sails up and trying to goose-wing downwind. I thought if I could just get going downwind then try and steer with the drouges I had out of the stern, all would be ok. My god I tried everything and in the end the main sheet snapped, one of the Genoa sheets snapped and got caught in the prop. Everything I tried, she just kept spinning back and sitting broadside on.

With my family now safely onboard the other yacht, they sat close-by as I kept trying.

I had now spent 60 sleepless hours trying everything I could and I could envisage something really bad happening to me if I was left alone out there. With the boom now swinging around as I rode over the swells and the wind showing no sign of easing off, I made the hardest decision of my life and decided to abandon and join my family.

Yacht abandoned

I left the drouges trailing from the stern, I also left the engine running on tick over to power the batteries to keep the AIS switched on. Navigation lights were not left on. The main was still up.

Leaving my boat was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. All the years of planning for this trip, all the personal belongings we had to leave on board, all the children’s Christmas presents. It breaks my heart just writing this. I am just hoping she’s still afloat or else it’ll all be lost forever.

The crew of the yacht that rescued us were amazing, we were really looked after and brought safely to Martinique.

The search for Dove II

So my intention now is to try and recover my yacht, bring it back in for repair and carry on with our dream trip. After all of our hard work the past few years and the preparation, I really don’t want us to have to go home.

James has been in contact with Glenn Tuttle, net manager of the SSCA HF radio service ‘KPK’, who in partnership with the Caribbean Safety & Security Net is helping alert the cruising community.

The following is action the SSCA’s HF Radio Service “KPK” took on James’ behalf and request:

KPK contacted Orbcomm, Inc. ORBCOMM is a Virginia based global market leader in Satellite AIS (Automatic Identification System)—a vessel tracking system used on ships and by vessel traffic services for identification and location information. Satellite AIS provides a means to track the location of vessels in the most remote areas of the world, especially over open oceans and beyond the reach of terrestrial-based AIS systems. Orbcomm provided KPK with six position reports before and after he abandoned the vessel.

KPK also contacted well-known weather router Chris Parker of the Marine Weather Center (https://www.mwxc.com/ ) for his help creating a drift analysis to predict where the vessel is headed. The Marine Weather Center and, chief forecaster Chris Parker provide vessel-specific routing advice for cruisers worldwide. Chris and the SSCA have enjoyed a long relationship, and the SSCA has recognized Chris for the valuable contributions he has made to the cruising community.

Chris worked with the AIS data provided by Orbcomm, Inc., and with historical weather data, was able to make some predictions as to the probable path the Dove II will take.

The following is Chris Parker’s drift analysis as of January 17, 2017:

Based on an assumption that nothing onboard changed since abandonment, I calculated the approximate location of Dove II tomorrow (January 18, 2017) near 19-12N/64-20W (about 30mi N of the island of Anegada in the BVI).

I know you suspect the drogue chaffed through, but without knowing when this might have happened, there is no way to account for it in the drift analysis. Also, there is no way of knowing what direction the vessel would drift without the drogue (one might assume she would drift downwind, but that’s not necessarily true – the keel would still provide lift against the press of wind on the hull and partially hoisted sails). There’s also no way of knowing whether there is currently more or less of a sail plan erected than when you abandoned.

So with all that uncertainty, the best I can do is assume nothing changed on the vessel since abandonment.

In my calculations, I accounted for wind strength, wind direction, and the strength/direction of sea surface currents.

I estimate Dove II has drifted 630 miles, on a bearing of 282T in the 18 days (through 12utc Wed18) since the last AIS location (12utc December 31). That’s about 35mi/day, or about 1.46k speed.

KPK has provided all the pertinent information to the U.S. Coast Guard and asked they consider issuing an AMVER alert for the vessel as a hazard to navigation.

If you spot Dove II

Contact MRCC Martinique (Tel: +596 596 70 92 92 E-mail: [email protected]) or the local coastguard.

James Coombes is offering a $10,000 reward for the safe recovery of the S/V DOVE II. James may be contacted directly at [email protected] .

There is a video on YouTube from SY Tilly Mint, the crew that rescued the family:

https://youtu.be/e8bfj2Mx65k

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Superyacht sinks latest: Investigators reveal where bodies were found as probe looks at 'crew's responsibility'

Italian officials revealed at a news conference there could be "a question of manslaughter" as they opened a shipwreck investigation and said the probe is also looking at the "crew's responsibility".

Saturday 24 August 2024 18:33, UK

• Superyacht sinking

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• Prosecutor: There 'could be a question of manslaughter'
• Probe 'concentrating' on crew's responsibility
• Seven bodies recovered after five-day search of superyacht wreckage off Sicily
• Saturday's papers pay tribute to youngest victim Hannah Lynch
• Hannah's sister pays tribute to 'my little angel'
• Explained: Inside the superyacht | What challenges have faced divers?
• Eyewitness: Sombre scenes greet rescue teams as final body is brought ashore
• Live reporting by Niamh Lynch

We're ending our live coverage for this evening but here is a recap of what we know:

• Prosecutors have opened a manslaughter investigation into the Bayesian sinking;
• Officials have revealed more details on their investigation and the difficult five-day rescue mission;
• The six bodies found during the search in recent days were all in cabins on the left-hand - and highest - side of the ship. Five were found in the first cabin and the sixth was found in the third;
• Prosecutors said the six passengers were most likely asleep when the boat sank;
• The probe is now focusing on the crew and their responsibilities, with the captain set to undergo more questioning.

Monday 19 August

The Bayesian yacht, flying a British flag, sinks at around 5am local time when the area was hit by a tornado.

Fifteen people are rescued from the 56 metre vessel - including a mother and baby - but another seven remain missing.

One body, later confirmed to be the yacht's chef Recaldo Thomas, is found near the wreck.

It emerges that British technology tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah are among six people that remain missing.

Tuesday 20 August

The search continues for the six tourists missing.

It is reported that among those missing are Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer; his wife, Judy Bloomer; Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo; and his wife, Neda Morvillo.

Police divers try to reach the hull of the ship, resting at a depth of 50 metres.

Italy's fire brigade Vigili del Fuoco say early inspections of the wreck were "unsuccessful" because of limited access to the bridge and furniture obstructing passages.

The operation is later described as "complex", with divers limited to 12-minute underwater shifts.

Tributes pour in for Mr Thomas, with his friend Gareth Williams saying: "I can talk for everyone that knew him when I say he was a well-loved, kind human being with a calm spirit."

Wednesday 21 August

The search for the six people unaccounted for enters a third day, with crews carrying out inspections of the yacht's internal hull.

A team of four British inspectors from the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) arrive in Porticello to look at the site of the sinking.

A helicopter is drafted in to help with the search effort and remotely controlled underwater vehicles are being used, with naval units and cave divers also taking part in the search.

Five bodies are found inside the yacht on Wednesday afternoon. Only four of them are brought to shore.

Body bags are seen being taken to Porticello in the afternoon where dozens of emergency services staff wait.

Searches finish for the day just before 7.30pm.

Thursday 22 August

The search resumes for the remaining missing person.

The body of the fifth missing person, found but not recovered the previous day, is brought to shore.

A fire service boat with flashing blue lights returns with a blue body bag to the port of Porticello just after 8.45am local time on Thursday.

Tributes pour in for Mr Lynch and Mr and Mrs Bloomer after they are identified as having died.

The search is called off at around 8pm in Sicily, with divers expected to begin again at 6.30am on Friday.

Friday 23  August

The search continues for the final person missing from the wreck of the Bayesian, Hannah Lynch.

Vincenzo Zagarola, of the Italian Coastguard, says the search for Hannah has not been "easy or quick", comparing the sunken yacht to an "18-storey building full of water".

The coastguard confirms in the late morning that her body has been found.

A green body bag is brought to the port of Porticello from the site of the sinking.

A spokesperson announces on behalf of the Lynch family that they are "devastated" and "in shock" after the deaths of Mike and Hannah.

Hannah's sister Esme pays tribute to her "little angel".

Saturday 24 August

A press conference is held in the court of an Italian town, Termini Imerese.

Public prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio tells reporters that his office has opened an initial investigation against unknown persons into manslaughter and negligent shipwreck.

As the focus now turns to the manslaughter investigation, here's another reminder of the seven victims of the sinking and the 15 people who survived. 

A close friend of the Lynch family has added to the chorus of tributes for British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, who died in Monday's superyacht sinking.

Susannah Gurdun, who lives in Suffolk, recalled being "daunted" when she first met Mr Lynch at a dinner party, before discovering he was "so much more than the corporate cliche".

"He was riveting.  He was funny, and kind, and endlessly interesting; capable of talking about anything and everything," she said.

Ms Gardun said the businessman also had a "thrilling ability" to make complicated subjects "accessible to those of us less blessed with a science acumen".

"In particular, he was wonderful with children.  I will never forget hearing him explain to a group of them - including our ten year old son - the physics of why the sky went pink at sunset," she said.

She went on describe Mr Lynch as a "true genius" and "phenomenal creative".

Ms Gardun said his daughter Hannah was also showing "serious literary promise", and added that it was "beyond tragic that we will never know where her own particular brilliance might have led".

"I still feel blessed to have shared that time with them in Spain.  Not just because I witnessed Mike’s incredible storytelling; but because I was given a chance of understanding what that moment said about all four of them as a united vibrant loving family," she said.

"He was an extraordinary human being and it was - truly - a privilege to have known him."

A yacht crew member who survived the sinking has paid tribute to Hannah Lynch, calling her a "diamond in a sea of stars".

Sasha Murray, chief stewardess of the Bayesian, has released a statement after divers recovered the final missing body from the wreckage, which is believed to be 18-year-old Hannah.

"Those who knew her will know that Hannah was a diamond in a sea of stars," she said.

"Bright, beautiful and always shining. What most people may not have seen was the extraordinarily strong, deep and loving relationship she shared with her parents, whom she adored more than anything. 

"While swimming with them she often said, if anything ever happened she would save them. 

"I have no doubt that the Irish, Latina fire that burns in her soul kept that spirited determination alive."

Ms Murray's statement comes as a new image of Hannah Lynch and her father Mike Lynch is released:

Prosecutors announced in this morning's news conference that they have opened a manslaughter and negligent shipwreck investigation.

Officials were unable to answer several queries from the media, saying they needed time to establish the facts, but what are the key questions facing prosecutors? 

Why weren't passengers who remained on board the vessel warned about escaping from the yacht?

The prosecutor in charge of the case, Raffaele Cammarano, suggested that some passengers may have been asleep when others were awake.

Asked why they were not woken up or alerted, he said that is something investigators are trying to work out from the statements of the survivors.

He called it an "essential" part of the inquiry.

Why were several of the passengers in one cabin?

The press conference heard several bodies onboard the sunken yacht were found in a single cabin which was not theirs.

Mr Cammarano said investigators currently do not know the reason for them being discovered in the same cabin.

The chief of the Palermo fire service, Bentivoglio Fiandra, said the yacht pinned to the right and suggested people tried to go on the other side, taking refuge in cabins in the higher part of the wreck.

Why did the boat sink?

The vessel had been deemed "unsinkable" by its manufacturer - Italian shipyard Perini Navi.

The Bayesian was hit by a downburst, according to Mr Cammarano, which are powerful winds that descend from a thunderstorm and spread out quickly once they hit the ground.

Officials will look into the safety equipment on the sunken vessel.

Mr Cammarano was asked about whether there is a black box and if the hatches were left open.

He said investigators do not have exact information about the black box and that the first phase of the inquiry will look into it.

Why were nearby vessels not similarly affected?

Another yacht, the Sir Robert BP, was about 150 to 200 metres from the Bayesian when extreme weather hit.

Its crew helped to rescue 15 people from the stricken vessel.

Italian officials said they would be looking at how the downburst could affect one vehicle and not other nearby vessels.

What weather warnings was the Bayesian alerted to?

Maritime director of western Sicily, Rear Admiral Raffaele Macauda, said the weather at the time of the yacht's sinking was abnormal and there was nothing to suggest such an extreme situation would arise.

He said there were forecasts of winds and a storm alert, but there was no warning of a tornado.

"Given that the conditions were such, there wasn't anything to suggest there could be an extreme situation arising," he said.

"There are vessels that can monitor, after all, these events and one would have thought that the captain had taken precautions."

How long will it take to recover the sailing vessel?

Mr Macauda could not confirm how long it would take to retrieve the shipwreck of the sunken yacht.

"Everything depends on the availability of the owners and the timeframe of the retrieval of the wreck and of course all that has to be submitted to the port authorities and in parallel of course there will be the inquiry results and it's only really then that we will be able to authorise the operation," he said.

"I can't say, like some experts who have already spoken on the subject, [said] that it will be eight weeks."

He made clear that the owners will bear the full cost of retrieval, although he could not estimate the figure.

Italian authorities detailed the challenging and meticulous rescue operation to recover the six missing people from the Bayesian wreck (see 9.18am post).

But why was the five-day search so difficult? 

Read more below...

More on this morning's press conference. 

One of the main updates from prosecutors was that they have opened manslaughter and shipwreck investigations after the deaths of seven people in the Bayesian sinking. 

Watch the announcement below...

Prosecutors have given a lengthy news conference this morning on their investigation into the sinking of the Bayesian. 

Read the full report on the prosecutors' probe below...

Marine investigator James Wilkes has been speaking to Sky News after this morning's press conference.

"Naturally, there are more questions than there are substantive answers at the moment - that's the nature of investigative work.

"Something forced that yacht to roll beyond its nominal stability limits, such that it wasn't able to right itself with the ingress of a certain amount of seawater that was coming into the yacht. 

"So the investigators are going to ask themselves one initial question - what must the conditions have been for this to happen? 

"Then they are going to look at the contributing factors to the yacht, sinking, and, and the unfortunate loss of life." 

Prosecutors said this morning that the future of the investigation is reliant on recovering the wreck. 

Mr Wilkes said the yacht is a "major piece of physical evidence in and of itself." 

"It's lying at 50 metres, which is a recoverable depth. 

"If it was significantly deeper, then I'm not sure they'd be considering salvage at this stage or certainly, the salvage question would be a lot more complicated to answer. 

"But if there was the ability to raise that yacht in one piece safely, then it gives the investigators physically more to look at."

Mr Wilkes said he was unsure if the yacht would have a "black box" - called a voyage data recorder in shipping. 

"It would record things like GPS position, heading speed, engine telemetry, whether the radars were on, what they were recording, alarms, communications from the yacht itself, any audio on the bridge.

"But more often than not, these are on merchant ships. The yacht was a commercial yacht in the sense that it could be chartered out so it's quite possible it has a voyage data recorder on, but I'm not sure that it does. I don't know that as a matter of fact," he said.

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British tech magnate Mike Lynch, 2 US citizens among missing after luxury yacht sinks off Sicily

15 people were rescued and one body believed to be the cook was found near the wreck, but six others were unaccounted for and believed inside the hull, by andrea rosa and nicole winfield | the associated press • published august 19, 2024 • updated on august 19, 2024 at 6:21 pm.

British tech magnate Mike Lynch and five other people were missing after their luxury sailing yacht sank during a freak storm off Sicily early Monday, Italy’s civil protection and authorities said. Lynch’s wife and 14 other people survived.

Lynch, who was  acquitted in June  in a big U.S. fraud trial, was among six people who remain unaccounted for after their chartered sailboat sank off Porticello, when a tornado over the water known as a waterspout struck the area overnight, said Salvo Cocina of Sicily’s civil protection agency.

One body was recovered, and police divers spent the day trying to reach the hull of the ship, which was resting at a depth of 50 meters (163 feet) off Porticello where it had been anchored, rescue authorities said. They returned to the site after 10 p.m. to see if it would be possible to search through the night, when weather conditions were expected to worsen, said Luca Cari, spokesman of the fire rescue service.

It had a crew of 10 people and 12 passengers, the Italian coast guard said. A sudden fierce storm had battered the area overnight, and struck the place precisely where the 56-meter (184-foot) British-flagged Bayesian had been moored.

“They were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Cocina, noting that another superyacht nearby wasn't as badly damaged and helped rescue some of the 15 survivors, who included Lynch's wife Angela Bacares.

The Bayesian was notable for its single 75-meter (246-feet) mast — one of the world’s tallest made of aluminum and which was lit up at night, just hours before it sank. Online charter sites listed it for rent for up to 195,000 euros (about $215,000) a week.

One of the survivors, identified as Charlotte Golunski, said she momentarily lost hold of her 1-year-old daughter Sofia in the water, but then managed to hold her up over the waves until a lifeboat inflated and they were both pulled to safety, Italian news agency ANSA reported, quoting the mother. The father, James Emsley, also survived, said Cocina.

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Karsten Borner, the captain of the Sir Robert Baden Powell, said he had noticed the Bayesian nearby during the storm but after it calmed he saw a red flare and realized the ship had simply disappeared, ANSA and the Giornale di Sicilia newspaper reported. Borner said he and a crew member boarded their tender and found a lifeboat with 15 people, some of them injured, who they then took aboard and alerted the coast guard.

Eight of those rescued were hospitalized while the others were taken to a hotel. One body believed to be the cook was found near the wreck, but six others were unaccounted for and believed inside the hull, said Cari, the fire rescue spokesperson. The rescue operations, which were visible from shore, involved helicopters and rescue boats from the coast guard, fire rescue and civil protection service.

#Palermo , naufragio imbarcazione a Porticello: recuperato dai #sommozzatori dei #vigilidelfuoco il corpo senza vita di un uomo, all’esterno del relitto. Proseguono le operazioni di ricerca con il coordinamento in mare della @guardiacostiera [ #19agosto 11:30] pic.twitter.com/Y2m9o5ohCe — Vigili del Fuoco (@vigilidelfuoco) August 19, 2024

Fisherman Francesco Cefalu’ said he had seen a flare from shore at around 4:30 a.m. and immediately set out to the site but by the time he got there, the Bayesian had already sunk, with only cushions, wood and other items from the superyacht floating in the water.

“But for the rest, we didn’t find anyone,” he said from the port hours later. He said that he immediately alerted the coast guard and stayed on site for three hours, but didn't find any survivors. “I think they are inside, all the missing people.”

He said he had been up early to check the weather to see if he could go fishing, and surmised that a sudden waterspout had struck the yacht.

“It could be that the mast broke, or the anchor at the prow pulled it, I don’t know,” he said.

Cocina said the crew and passengers hailed from a variety of countries: In addition to Britain and the United States, passengers and crew were from Antigua, France, Germany, Ireland, Myanmar, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain, he said.

Among the dead and missing, four were British, two were American, and one was a man with dual citizenship from Canada and Antigua, according to Luciano Pischedda, the Italian Coast Guard official overseeing the rescue operations.

The UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch is deploying a team of four inspectors to Italy to conduct a preliminary assessment. The Foreign Commonwealth and Development office said it was “providing consular support to a number of British nationals and their families.”

Dutch foreign ministry spokesperson Casper Soetekouw said the lone Dutch citizen on board, a man, had been rescued and was not in life-threatening condition.

Lynch, once hailed as Britain’s king of technology, was cleared in June of fraud and conspiracy charges related to Hewlett Packard’s $11 billion takeover of his company, Autonomy Corp.

The not-guilty verdicts followed an 11-week criminal trial in San Francisco that delved into the history of HP’s  2011 acquisition  of Autonomy, a business software firm founded by Lynch.

The  fraud accusations  represented a dramatic turn in the fortunes of an entrepreneur once described as the Bill Gates of Britain — a title he seemed to live up to when he netted an $800 million from the Autonomy sale.

The acquittal vindicated Lynch, who had vehemently denied wrong doing and portrayed HP as a technological train wreck.

“I’m looking forward to returning the UK and getting back to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field,” Lynch said in a statement released after the verdict.

The yacht, built in 2008 by the Italian firm Perini Navi, can accommodate 12 passengers in four double cabins, a triple and the master suite, plus crew accommodations, according to Charter World and Yacht Charters.

The vessel, which previously was named Salute when it flew under a Dutch flag, featured a sleek, minimalist interior of light wood with Japanese accents designed by the French designer Remi Tessier, according to descriptions and photos on the charter sites.

AP writers Danica Kirka and Sylvia Hui contributed from London.

This article tagged under:

Five bodies found inside superyacht that sank off Sicily

PORTICELLO, Sicily — Divers recovered four bodies Wednesday from inside a superyacht that sank in a sudden storm off Sicily , Salvatore Cocina, director of the island's Civil Protection Agency, confirmed to NBC News.

Cocina later confirmed to Sky News that a fifth body had been found and was being brought to shore. One passenger remains missing.

The identities of the bodies were not immediately released. Their recovery follows a dayslong search in the deep waters off Italy where British tech tycoon Mike Lynch  and several others were believed to be trapped in the hull. Fifteen of the 22 people aboard survived.

The rest had been missing since early Monday, when the Bayesian was caught in the storm anchored off the coast of Porticello, a village near the Sicilian capital city, Palermo.

The body of the ship’s cook, identified as Recaldo Thomas, a Canadian Antiguan national, was recovered Monday. 

On Wednesday, NBC News witnessed what appeared to be at least three body bags being lifted from fire department boats after they pulled into port at Porticello. It was unclear whose bodies they were. Some were later transferred to ambulances and driven away from the dock.

Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter, Hannah; Morgan Stanley International Chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy; and Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife, Neda, are also missing. 

The Bayesian is owned by a firm linked to Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, who was among the survivors rescued by a nearby vessel after they got into a lifeboat.

Built by the Italian shipbuilder Perini Navi in 2008, the U.K.-registered yacht could carry 12 guests and a crew of up to 10, according to online specialist boating sites. Its nearly 250-foot mast is the tallest aluminum sailing mast in the world, according to CharterWorld Luxury Yacht Charters.  

Regularly described in U.K. media as “Britain’s Bill Gates,” Lynch was  acquitted of fraud by a San Francisco jury this year, stemming from the sale of his software company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion in 2011.

The Mediterranean sailing vacation was designed to be a celebration for Lynch, who brought Bloomer, who testified in his defense, and Morvillo, one of his U.S. lawyers, on the trip.

Lynch's co-defendant Stephen Chamberlain was not aboard the Bayesian, but in what appears to be a tragic coincidence, a  car struck and killed  him Saturday as he was jogging in a village about 68 miles north of London, local police said.

Claudio Lavanga and Claudia Rizzo reported from Porticello. Henry Austin reported from London.

Claudio Lavanga is Rome-based foreign correspondent for NBC News.

Claudia Rizzo is an Italy based journalist.

Henry Austin is a senior editor for NBC News Digital based in London.

Mike Lynch yacht latest: Two more crew under investigation as Bayesian captain refuses to answer questions

LIVE – Updated at 18:18

Two more crew members from the Bayesian are under investigation for manslaughter after seven people died when the superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily.

It comes as the captain of the boat has “exercised his right to remain silent” as he faced further questioning from Italian prosecutors investigating the sinking of billionaire Mike Lynch’s superyacht , according to his lawyer.

James Cutfield, a 51-year-old New Zealand national, is under investigation for possible manslaughter and culpable shipwreck charges and was questioned for the third time by the Termini Imerese prosecutors on Tuesday.

“The captain exercised his right to remain silent for two fundamental reasons,” lawyer Giovanni Rizzuti told reporters. “First, he’s very worn out. Second, we were appointed only on Monday and for a thorough and correct defence case we need to acquire a set of data that at the moment we don’t have.”

Being placed under investigation does not imply guilt and does not mean formal charges will necessarily follow. It is still unclear whether other individuals will also be placed under investigation.

It comes amid tributes for the owner of the British-flagged vessel Mike Lynch, his daughter Hannah Lynch, Morgan Stanley chairman Jonathan Bloomer , his wife Judith Bloomer , Clifford Chance lawyer Christopher Morvillo and his wife Neda Morvillo, who all died in the disaster.

Two more crew members from Bayesian under investigation

• Bayesian captain ‘exercised right to silence’, lawyer says
• Captain under investigation after sinking of Lynch’s yacht, judicial source says
• Timeline of the Bayesian luxury yacht disaster
• Tribute to ‘genius’ storyteller Mike Lynch

Pictured: British crew member being investigated after yacht tragedy

Three people are being investigated by the Italian authorities for manslaughter after the sinking of the Bayesian yacht off the coast of Sicily.

Ship engineer Tim Parker Eaton, is one of the two British crew members now also being investigated.

A source told Reuters that Parker Eaton is suspected of having failed to protect the yacht’s engine room and operating systems.

Being investigated does not imply guilt and does not mean formal charges will follow.

Five found in same cabin while Hannah Lynch found alone in another, according to reports

Five corpses were all found in the same cabin on the Bayesian while the body of Hannah Lynch was found alone in another, according to Italian officials.

The five people that rescue divers found together appeared to have gathered in the first cabin on the left of the superyacht in an attempt to escape, reported  The Telegraph , while the 18-year-old was discovered in the third cabin on the left on her own.

Girolamo Bentivoglio Fiandra, a senior officer from the fire service, said on Saturday: “The yacht tended to the right and obviously the bodies tried to go to the other side and take refuge in their cabins. We found five bodies in a cabin on the left and another one in the third cabin on the left. They were in the higher part of the shipwreck.”

Who was on the Bayesian?

The sinking of the Bayesian off the coast of Sicily made headlines across the world, with interest rising when it was revealed that British technology tycoon Mike Lynch was among those onboard.

It then emerged that the boat trip was a celebration by Mr Lynch with friends, colleagues and his legal team after he won a decade-long legal battle.

Here we explain who was onboard the ship during the tragedy:

Mike Lynch yacht latest: Two crew investigated as Bayesian captain refuses questions

What are investigators focusing on?

Chief prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio confirmed an investigation has been launched on Saturday.

He said his team will consider each possible element of responsibility, including those of the captain, the crew, individuals in charge of supervision, and the yacht’s manufacturer.

The Bayesian, a 184ft (56m) British-flagged luxury yacht, went down near the Mediterranean island in southern Italy last Monday.

Investigators are focusing on how a vessel deemed “unsinkable” by its manufacturer, Italian shipyard Perini Navi, sank while a nearby sailing boat remained largely unscathed.

Prosecutors said the event was “extremely rapid” and could have been a “downburst” - a localised, powerful wind that descends from a thunderstorm and spreads out rapidly upon hitting the ground.

The crew were saved, apart from the chef, while six passengers were trapped in the hull.

Watch: Final moments of seven who died in Bayesian tragedy revealed by fire service boss

Why did the bayesian sink.

Hatches and doors left open overnight on the superyacht Bayesian may have caused it to sink in  Italy , a sailing expert has said.

Sam Jefferson, editor of magazine Sailing Today, believes the vessel’s huge mast is also likely to have contributed to the deadly event.

Mr Jefferson told the PA news agency: “I would have said that the boat got hit very hard by the wind, it was pinned over on its side.

“I imagine all the doors were open because it was hot, so there were enough hatches and doors open that it filled with water very quickly and sank like that.

“The reason it got pinned over so hard was because the mast is huge.

“It acted almost like a sail. (It) pushed the boat hard over on its side.

“(The boat) filled with water before it could right.

“This is all speculation, but that’s the only logical explanation.”

Bayesian captain ‘exercised right to silence’ in manslaughter probe questioning, lawyer says

The captain of the Bayesian yacht chose not to respond to prosecutors’ questions as he was spoken to for a third time on Tuesday, his lawyer has said.

James Cutfield, a 51-year-old New Zealand national, is under investigation for possible manslaughter and culpable shipwreck charges.

Being placed under investigation does not imply guilt or mean that charges will necessarily follow. Chief prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio has said his team would consider each possible element of responsibility including those of the captain, the crew, individuals in charge of supervision and the yacht’s manufacturer.

The Times  reported one of Mr Cutfield’s lawyers as saying that the captain is “understandably very shaken up” after the ordeal last Monday.

Who is being investigated?

On Monday, the boats 51-year-old captain James Cutfield, from New Zealand, was put under investigation. He declined to respond to prosecutors during questioning on Tuesday

Two British crew members are now also being investigated. Ship engineer Tim Parker Eaton and sailor Matthew Griffith are being investigated over the same crimes.

How Mike Lynch’s inner circle celebrated end of billionaire’s 13 year court battle

British technology tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah were among the people initially unaccounted for after his superyacht Bayesian sank in a storm off the coast of Sicily in the early hours of Monday.

On Saturday morning, Italian authorities announced a manslaughter investigation had been launched into the deaths of seven people, after a five-day operation that has seen divers carefully navigating their way into the cabin bedrooms.

After a decade-long legal battle which had seen him extradited to the US to face an $11bn fraud case, Mr Lynch had celebrated by inviting his close friends, colleagues and those who helped him on his legal team aboard his boat as a gesture of gratitude.

Read the full article here:

Who was on Bayesian and how they were celebrating end of Mike Lynch’s court battles

Read the full story: Two more crew members under investigation

Two more crew members from the Bayesian are under investigation for manslaughter, including the ship engineer and sailor.

A source said that Tim Parker Easton is suspected of having failed to protect the yacht’s engine room and operating systems, while Matthew Griffith was on watch duty on the night of the incident.

Read the full article from Tara Cobham here:

Two more crew members under investigation over sinking of superyacht Bayesian

Investigation will consider every possible element

Chief prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio, who is heading the investigation, has said his team would consider each possible element of responsibility including those of the captain, the crew, individuals in charge of supervision and the yacht’s manufacturer.

The legal team have also said their investigation would take time and required the wreck of the Bayesian superyacht to be salvaged from the sea. It is currenlty lying on its right side, at a depth of around 50 metres (164 feet).

Two more crew members from the Bayesian are under investigation for manslaughter after seven people were killed when the superyacht sank in a storm off Sicily last week.

A judicial source said on Wednesday that Italian prosecutors are probing two more crew members in connection with the vessel’s sinking, along with its captain, after the British-flagged Bayesian capsized on 19 August while anchored off northern Sicily .

Ship engineer Tim Parker Eaton and sailor Matthew Griffith are both also being investigated over the same crimes. The source said that Parker Eaton is suspected of having failed to protect the yacht’s engine room and operating systems, while Griffith was on watch duty on the night of the incident.

Pausing coverage

Good evening, that’s all for today on our coverage.

What happened when boat started sinking

The Bayesian sent its last signal before sinking via the tracking Automatic Identification System (AIS) at 0206 GMT, according to the MarineTraffic website.

Chief Prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio said a red flare alerting rescue services about the emergency was fired into the sky at 0238 GMT, more than 30 minutes after the boat had gone down.

The head of Palermo’s Fire Brigade, Girolamo Bentivoglio Fiandra, said the boat sank from the stern and is lying on its starboard side at a depth of around 50 metres (164 feet).

In the yacht, the bodies of the dead were found in the cabins on the left-hand side of the boat, where the passengers may have tried to search for remaining bubbles of air, he added.

Prosecutor Cammarano said the passengers were all probably asleep at the time of the storm which was why they failed to escape.

The Bayesian captain’s legal team

The Bayesian captain James Cutfield was asked to appoint a lawyer after questioning by Italian prosecutors investigating the sinking of the yacht on Sunday.

The 51-year-old has been placed under investigation for possible manslaughter and shipwreck, according to his lawyer Aldo Mordiglia.

Mr Mordiglia is one of two lawyers who are representing the New Zealander. The other is Palermo lawyer Giovanni Rizzuti.

According to Italian media reports, Mr Mordiglia, from Genoa, is specialised in maritime and international law.

The captain of the Bayesian yacht chose not to respond to prosecutors’ questions as he was spoken to for a third time on Tuesday, his lawyer has said.

The Times reported one of Mr Cutfield’s lawyers as saying that the captain is “understandably very shaken up” after the ordeal last Monday.

Giselda Vagnoni has more in this report:

Lawyer gives update on investigation into captain of superyacht that sank off Sicily

Hatches and doors left open overnight on the superyacht Bayesian may have caused it to sink in Italy , a sailing expert has said.

Bayesian now an ‘environmental bomb'

Reports in Italy are emerging about the sunken Bayesian with divers from the coast guard beginning to film the wreck under the request of the prosecutor as the investigation gathers pace.

There are also concerns over the 18,000 litres of fuel and oil reportedly still on the boat.

Speaking to local outlet Corriere Della Sera, a fisherman said: “It is an environmental bomb at the bottom of our sea.”

Mass for the victims

In case you missed it over the bank holiday weekend, a mass for the victims of the Bayesian tragedy was held in Porticello on Sunday.

Flowers were also sent into the sea as a mark of tribute to those who died.

Boat was ‘one of the safest in the world’

The Bayesian was built in 2008 by Perini Navi, an Italian luxury yacht maker. It featured the world’s tallest aluminium mast, measuring 72 metres, but early reports that the mast broke in the storm have so far proven unfounded.

Giovanni Costantino, CEO of the Italian Sea Group, which owns Perini, said the yacht was “one of the safest boats in the world” and basically unsinkable.

He alleged that the sinking was due to a chain of human errors given that the storm was expected. He made his assertions partly based on data from the Automatic Identification System. The captain and other crew members have not spoken publicly about the disaster and attempts by Reuters to reach them have been unsuccessful.

Costantino said that had the crew shut all doors and hatches, turned on the engine, lifted the anchor, lowered the keel and turned the yacht to face the wind, it would have suffered no damage.

He added that data showed it took 16 minutes from when the wind began buffeting the yacht, and it began taking on water, for it to sink.

Nothing wrong with the Bayesian being moored offshore - say coast guard

The Bayesian was anchored off the port of Porticello, near Palermo, when it sank in the pre-dawn dark amid a very severe and sudden weather event.

Prosecutor Raffaele Cammarano said on Saturday the event was most likely a “downburst”, a very strong downward wind that is an intense but relatively frequent event at sea, rather than a waterspout which involves rotating winds like a tornado.

The coast guard have also said that given the weather forecast, there was nothing wrong about the Bayesian being moored offshore rather than at sheltering at port. Another yacht anchored nearby emerged from the storm unharmed.

Twenty-two people were on board, and 15 survived, including nine out of 10 crew members as well as Lynch’s wife, whose company owned the Bayesian. They were found on a life raft.

Six out of the 12 passengers died. Prosecutors, who have put the yacht’s captain James Cutfield under investigation for manslaughter and shipwreck, said the ship would have to be pulled out of the water before the investigation could be concluded.

Puzzlement over sinking

The sinking has puzzled seafarers and nautical engineers, who have said that it should have taken hours for the Bayesian to fill up with enough water to sink it, making its swift demise incomprehensible.

There have been suggestions that one or more portholes, windows or other openings may have been inadvertently left open by the crew, or broken or smashed by the storm, letting in water.

Experts also wondered if the yacht had been moored with its keel up, potentially compromising its stability. The keel is a fin-like stabilising structure under the hull, which can be partially lifted to reduce the depth of the boat in shallow waters or harbours.

Prosecutors have said it was too early to comment on either hypothesis. They also said crew members were not immediately tested for alcohol or drugs because they were in a state of shock when rescued.

Captain of Bayesian under investigation - recap

The captain of the Bayesian is being investigated for manslaughter and shipwreck , a judicial source has said, as the probe into the sinking of the superyacht in a storm off Sicily continues.

Italian prosecutors have placed James Cutfield under investigation over the deaths of British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and six other people , the official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters on Monday, confirming earlier reports by Italian media.

Being placed under investigation in Italy does not imply guilt and does not mean formal charges will necessarily follow. Notices to people under investigation need to be sent out before authorities can carry out the autopsies on the bodies of the dead.

Bayesian captain ‘investigated for manslaughter’ as probe into sinking continues

Mike Lynch’s wife leaves Sicily

Mike Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, was among the 15 survivors of the sunked Bayesian.

Her husband and 18-year-old daughter Hannah, however, were among the seven people who died.

Many of the survivors have stayed in Italy as authorities try to work out what happened onboard ahead of the sinking last week.

But on Sunday, Ms Bacares reportedly left Sicily along with other survivors in a private jet.

Bayesian captain ‘deeply affected’ by ordeal

James Cutfield, 51, the captain of the tragic Bayesian, faces further questioning from prosecutors in Italy today after he was placed under investigation for possible manslaughter and shipwreck.

One of his lawyers, Giovanni Rizzuti, told the Guardian on Monday: “Our client is deeply affected by this ordeal.”

“We are currently assessing, with other legal representatives, the defence strategy and examining the technical aspects of the case.”

Bayesian captain facing further questioning from prosecutors on Tuesday

Prosecutors in Italy continue to investigate the captain of a superyacht that sank during a storm off Sicily last week.

James Cutfield, the 51-year-old New Zealand national who was captain of the Bayesian, was among 15 survivors of the August 19 sinking that killed British tech magnate Mike Lynch, his daughter Hannah and five others.

Mr Cutfield is being investigated for possible manslaughter and culpable shipwreck, said lawyer Aldo Mordiglia, one of two attorneys appointed for the captain’s defence.

Mr Mordiglia said Mr Cutfield, who already has been questioned, would be questioned again by prosecutors on Tuesday. He declined to discuss the strategy for the defence.

Under Italian law, being under investigation does not imply guilt and does not necessarily lead to criminal charges.

On Saturday, chief prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio confirmed an investigation has been launched.

New York lawyer who died in yacht disaster wrote haunting LinkedIn post weeks before

A lawyer who died after a yacht sank off the coast of Sicily wrote a haunting post on LinkedIn two months before he joined the doomed voyage.

In one of his only posts on the site, Christopher Morvillo, 59, thanked his legal team after they helped British tech tycoon Mike Lynch win a fraud trial and discussed living “happily ever after.”

Graig Graziosi and Mike Bedigan report:

NYC lawyer who died in yacht disaster wrote haunting LinkedIn post weeks before

What is a downburst?

Officials said the superyacht had been hit by a downburst and the Italian officials said they would be looking at how it could affect one vehicle and not other nearby vessels, according to the translation of the conference.

A downburst is an intense burst of wind at ground level emenating from the strong downdraft of a thunderstorm; the wind often blows radially from a point source, as opposed to the rotating winds associated with a tornado.

Downbursts usually last just a few minutes, and can be particularly dangerous for aviation.

They have been blamed for a number of air crashes over the years, although the risk tends to be well forecast by meteorologists allowing pilots to avoid them.

Ex-court appointed guard says Mike Lynch ‘became more like a family’

A court-appointed armed guard, tasked with ensuring Mike Lynch did not abscond while facing fraud charges, has paid tribute to the tech mogul, saying the security team “became less of a detail and more like a family”.

Rolo Igno also described “the memory of a beautiful soul” in Mr Lynch’s daughter Hannah.

Mr Igno said he had the “privilege” of spending “almost every waking moment” with Mr Lynch while he was in custody in San Francisco, describing the detail as unlike any other he had ever worked and one that was “life changing”.

“As an executive protection agent, the number one rule is simple, don’t ever get close to the principal,” he said.

“They aren’t your friends, they’re a client and the relationship is strictly professional. But with Mike, that didn’t fly with him and for me that rule quickly dissolved.”

Final moments of seven who died in Bayesian tragedy revealed by fire service boss

Why was mike lynch’s yacht named the bayesian.

Autonomy, the software firm which Mike Lynch sold in a £8.64bn deal in 2011, was a pioneer of business data analysis, using machine learning and what Mr Lynch called “adaptive pattern recognition”.

It used a statistical method called “Bayesian inference” at the heart of its software, devised by the 18th-century mathematician Thomas Bayes.

The yacht’s name, Bayesian , harks to the same model that was at the heart of Autonomy’s – and Mr Lynch’s – success.

How did Mike Lynch make his money?

Once dubbed the “British Bill Gates”, Mike Lynch and his wife Angela Bacares were valued at £852m in 2023 by the Sunday Times Rich List.

The 59-year-old tech tycoon is known for founding Invoke Capital and Autonomy Corporation and had been in the headlines after he was cleared of charges in a high-profile fraud case.

My colleague Barney Davis has more details:

Mike Lynch net worth: How the billionaire made his money

Watch: Captain details Bayesian sinking 'within two minutes' after rescuing survivors

In focus | how the world of yachts got supersized.

The sinking of the 56-metre yacht Bayesian and the tragic deaths of British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and his guests and boat staff have given the public a glimpse into the rarefied world of superyachts, writes Boat Internationa l’s Lucy Dunn .

From the sheer size of the mast (74 metres, roughly the size of seven two-storey houses stacked on top of each other) to the expense ( Bayesian was put up for sale in 2014 with an asking price of $30m, which is around £23m), to the sheer luxury (the interiors were by Remi Tessier, the designer behind Claridge’s new penthouse), it’s a world few people normally get to see.

There are currently 12,626 superyachts on the water around the world with 1,166 superyachts in build or on order. If you have been to a Greek island this year, or maybe the Amalfi coast, you may have glimpsed them coming in and out of harbours and wondered who owns a yacht like that. Or who can afford to charter a yacht like that – which have an average price of around £180,000 a week.

While you may think of glossy influencers and A-listers, the superyachting fraternity is where millionaires are sorted from the billionaires from the centi-billionaires; the 0.001 per centers. Rarely will you find a celebrity with the financial clout to afford a yacht owned by Lynch, these are generally under-the-radar industry titans who don’t have household names.

So, what exactly makes a superyacht super? According to Boat International, where I work, it can be applied to any boat, motor or sailing yacht which is over 24 metres in length. Size, in the superyacht world, is everything – and yachts are getting bigger all the time.

Read the full article with Independent Premium:

Giant masts, moon pools and explorer pods: How the world of yachts got supersized

Friend pays tribute to Bayesian chef Recaldo Thomas

Recaldo Thomas was the superyacht’s chef and the first person whose death was confirmed.

The Canadian-Antiguan national was found by the Italian coastguard near the sunken boat. A friend of Mr Thomas, who asked to remain anonymous, said the yachting community has been saddened by his death.

She told The Independent: “He was a one-of-a-kind special human being. Incredibly talented, contagious smile and laugh, an incredible voice with a deep love of the ocean and the moon. I spoke to him nearly every day. He loved his life his friends and his job.”

Bayesian captain to be questioned again on Tuesday, lawyer says

James Cutfield, the 51-year-old New Zealand national who was captain of the Bayesian, is being investigated for possible manslaughter and culpable shipwreck, said lawyer Aldo Mordiglia, one of two attorneys appointed for the captain’s defence.

Mr Cutfield, who already has been questioned, will be questioned again by prosecutors on Tuesday, Mordiglia said.

Under Italian laws, being under investigation doesn’t imply any guilt, and doesn’t necessarily lead to criminal charges.

Chief prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio confirmed on Saturday that an investigation had been launched and that his team would consider each possible element of responsibility including those of the captain, the crew, individuals in charge of supervision and the yacht’s manufacturer.

Watch: The moment Bayesian yacht was engulfed by storm

Yacht ‘should have taken hours' to fill up with enough water to sink it.

The sinking of the Bayesian has puzzled seafarers and nautical engineers, who have said that it should have taken hours for the yacht to fill up with enough water to sink it, making its swift demise incomprehensible.

Bayesian sank from its stern, fire chief says

The Bayesian sent its last signal before sinking via the tracking Automatic Identification System (AIS) just after 4am local time, according to the MarineTraffic website.

Chief Prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio said a red flare alerting rescue services about the emergency was fired into the sky more than 30 minutes later.

Hannah Lynch was ‘one of the best English students in the country’, teacher says

Hannah Lynch had just completed her A-levels and secured a place to study English at Oxford University.

Her former English teacher Jon Mitropoulos-Monk said she was “one of the best English students in the country” having scored 100% in her English Literature GCSE.

Patrick Jacob, a family friend, paid tribute to her on Friday, saying: “Hannah was charming and ferociously intelligent with an insatiable thirst for life and knowledge. She was also warm, loving and deeply considerate; remarkably for her age.

“I am 50 years older than her and in my life I have never met anybody like Hannah. We have lost one of our brightest stars whose future held so much promise. Her loss is unbearable.”

After a decade-long legal battle which had seen him extradited to the US to face an $11bn fraud case, Mike Lynch had celebrated by inviting his close friends, colleagues and those who helped him on his legal team aboard his boat as a gesture of gratitude.

Yet a week of sunshine along the Italian coastline would soon turn to horror after the boat capsized shortly before dawn, only offering those onboard a few minutes to get themselves to safety.

My colleagues Rachel Hagan and Jabed Ahmed report:

Prosecutors say powerful wind could have caused the Bayesian’s ‘extremely rapid’ demise

Investigators are reported to be focusing on how the 56-metre luxury yacht Bayesian – a vessel deemed “unsinkable” by its manufacturer, Italian shipyard Perini Navi – sank while a nearby sailing boat remained largely unscathed during the storm off the coast of Sicily last Monday.

Prosecutors said the event was “extremely rapid” and could have been a “downburst” – a localised, powerful wind which descends from a thunderstorm and spreads out rapidly upon hitting the ground.

Prosecutors say no suspect identified so far

On Saturday, chief prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio confirmed an investigation has been launched into the sinking of the superyacht but said a suspect has not been identified.

He said his team will consider each possible element of responsibility, including those of the captain, the crew, individuals in charge of supervision, and the yacht's manufacturer.

The five people that rescue divers found together appeared to have gathered in the first cabin on the left of the superyacht in an attempt to escape, reported The Telegraph , while the 18-year-old was discovered in the third cabin on the left on her own.

Prosecutors describe Bayesian sinking as ‘extremely rapid’

Prosecutors have described the sinking of the Bayesian superyacht as “extremely rapid” and suggested it could have been caused by a “downburst”.

A downburst is a localized, powerful wind that descends from a thunderstorm and spreads out rapidly upon hitting the ground.

Mike Lynch and daughter Hannah were ‘part of a united, vibrant, loving family’

Family friends of Mike and Hannah Lynch have said the father and daughter were part of a “united, vibrant, loving family” – with the teenager remembered as a “diamond in a sea of stars” and the tech mogul as a brilliant storyteller.

The pair were among seven people who died after the luxury superyacht Bayesian sank off the coast of Sicily early on Monday morning.

Mr Lynch was the creator of software giant Autonomy and had been cleared in June of carrying out a massive fraud related to its 11 billion dollar (£8.64 billion) sale to US company Hewlett Packard.

Ellie Ng reports:

Teenager who died in superyacht tragedy was ‘a diamond in a sea of stars’

Rolo Igno also described “the memory of a beautiful soul” in Mr Lynch’s daughter Hannah, 18, after they died in the sinking of the luxury superyacht Bayesian off the coast of Sicily early on Monday.

Mr Lynch founded software giant Autonomy in 1996, and was cleared in June of carrying out a massive fraud relating to its 11 billion dollar (£8.64 billion) sale to US company Hewlett Packard, after a trial at a federal court in San Francisco , California.

Bayesian captain insisted ‘we didn’t see storm coming'

The captain of the Bayesian insisted he did not see the storm that sank the Bayesian last week.

Speaking of the storm, James Catfield, 51, said on Tuesday: “We didn’t see it coming.”

A judicial official, who asked not to be named, confirmed to Reuters on Monday the earlier reports in Italian media that the New Zealander was being investigated by Italian prosecutors after the superyacht capsized in a tornado off the coast of Sicily last Monday.

Mike Lynch had concerns over Lucy Letby conviction, says former minister

Former cabinet minister Sir David Davis has said that Mike Lynch , the tech mogul who died when his yacht sank off the coast of Sicily last week , was planning to examine the murder conviction of nurse Lucy Letby over concerns about its safety.

Sir David, the former Brexit secretary, has previously told The Independent he plans to spearhead an investigation questioning the conviction of Letby after a number of experts cast doubt over her guilt.

Sir David said he hopes to visit Letby in prison as part of an investigation into whether the serial baby killer may be the victim of a miscarriage of justice . Letby is serving 15 whole-life sentences for seven murders and eight attempted murders of babies in her care at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016.

My colleague Jabed Ahmed reports:

Mike Lynch had questions over Lucy Letby conviction, says former minister

Mike Lynch’s net worth and how the billionaire made his money

British tech tycoon Mike Lynch was among seven people who died after the luxury superyacht Bayesian sank off the coast of Sicily early on Monday morning

The 59-year-old is known for founding Invoke Capital and Autonomy Corporation and had been in the headlines after he was cleared of charges in a high-profile fraud case.

He was on the boat, named Bayesian, which sank in bad weather in the early hours of Monday near the Sicilian capital Palermo .

My colleague Barney Davis reports:

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Tech billionaire Mike Lynch identified among bodies recovered from Italy superyacht catastrophe

The two missing americans include a new york city attorney and his wife.

Moment luxury yacht sinks off coast of Italy caught on camera, with 6 presumed dead

Grainy CCTV footage shows the moment a storm struck the Bayesian luxury yacht, which sank Aug. 19, 2024, off the coast of Italy. Six people are missing, officials say. (Giornale di Sicilia)

The Italian coast guard on Thursday confirmed that billionaire tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch's body was among the four recovered from the water yesterday after his superyacht sank off the Italian coast on Monday.

The 184-foot British-flagged Bayesian carrying English entrepreneurs, lawyers and tourists capsized and sank off Sicily in bad weather early Monday, when divers rescued 15 people.

The identities of the other three bodies recovered Wednesday have not been disclosed, and one person is still missing Divers also recovered the body of chef Recaldo Thomas on Monday.

Among the rescued was Ayla Ronald, senior associate at Clifford Chance, a global law firm that recently handed a win to Lynch, who was acquitted of fraud accusations in San Francisco in June, according to The Telegraph.

Italian firefighter scuba divers bring ashore, in the green bag, the body of one of the victims from the British-flagged vessel Bayesian, Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024. The yacht was hit by a violent sudden storm and sank early Monday, while at anchor off the Sicilian village of Porticello near Palermo, in southern Italy. (Salvatore Cavalli)

Ronald's father, Lin Ronald, told the outlet that he texted his daughter after the superyacht sank. 

MOMENT LUXURY YACHT SINKS OFF COAST OF ITALY CAUGHT ON CAMERA, WITH 6 PRESUMED DEAD

Emergency services carry a body bag after a sailboat sank in the early hours of Monday, off the coast of Porticello, near the Sicilian city of Palermo, Italy, August 19, 2024. (REUTERS/Igor Petyx)

"[S]he hasn’t given me any updates about missing personnel or saved personnel. She has only said to me that there are deaths, and she and her partner are alive," Lin Ronald told The Telegraph, adding that his daughter "is a lawyer who is part of the legal team that was invited to go sailing as a result of the success in the recent United States court case."

Among the rescued was Ayla Ronald, senior associate at Clifford Chance, a global law firm that recently handed a win to billionaire tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, who was acquitted of fraud accusations in San Francisco in June, according to The Telegraph. (Clifford Chance)

Two Americans and four British nationals remain among the missing or unidentified. The two Americans are Christopher Morvillo, a New York City partner at Clifford Chance who helped with Lynch's fraud case, and his wife, Neda Morvillo, a jewelry designer.

"We are in shock and deeply saddened by this tragic incident. Our thoughts are with our Partner, Christopher Morvillo, and his wife Neda who are among the missing, and with their families," a Clifford Chance spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "Our utmost priority is providing support to the family as well as our colleague Ayla Ronald, who together with her partner, thankfully survived the incident. Our thoughts extend to the other passengers and crew and all those affected. We have no further comment at this time. We, and the families, ask that their request for privacy is honored during this period."

MORGAN STANLEY INTERNATIONAL CHAIRMAN, WIFE AND 4 OTHERS STILL MISSING AFTER LUXURY YACHT SINKS OFF SICILY

Neda Morvillo and Chris Morvillo attend Summer Birthday Cocktails For Lawrence Kaplan at Tower 270 - Rooftop on June 21, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Patrick McMullan/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)

Morvillo, who owns residences in New York City and South Kent, celebrated Lynch's June 6 acquittal on LinkedIn in one of his final social media posts before the luxury boat accident, eerily writing that his family would live "happily ever after." 

"A huge thank you to my patient and incredible wife, Neda Morvillo, and my two strong, brilliant and beautiful daughters, Sabrino Morvillo and Sophia Morvillo," he wrote after thanking the legal team that helped in Lynch's legal success.

WHO IS MIKE LYNCH, THE BRITISH TECH ENTREPRENEUR MISSING AFTER YACHT SANK?

Emergency and rescue services work near the scene where a sailboat sank in the early hours of Monday off the coast of Porticello, near the Sicilian city of Palermo, Italy, August 19, 2024. (REUTERS/Igor Petyx)

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The boat sank sometime around 5 a.m. Monday near the port of Porticello, where it was anchored, according to the Italian coast guard. There were a total of 10 crew members and 12 passengers aboard the ship at the time.

"The wind was very strong. Bad weather was expected , but not of this magnitude," a coast guard official in Palermo told Reuters.

Fox News' Pilar Arias, Christina Coulter and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Audrey Conklin is a digital reporter for Fox News Digital and FOX Business. Email tips to [email protected] or on Twitter at @audpants.

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Janni Captain	Posted: 30 January 2017 at 06:28
	had to be abandoned due to a loss of rudder (function?) close to Barbados.  or have a look a the by the charter vessel .
Fendant Admiral	Posted: 30 January 2017 at 13:38
Persse Captain	Posted: 31 January 2017 at 11:30
samuel Admiral of the Fleet	Posted: 31 January 2017 at 13:29
Ballistic Lieutenant Commander	Posted: 01 February 2017 at 02:45
Jim Sub Lieutenant	Posted: 10 February 2017 at 17:16
Persse Captain	Posted: 11 February 2017 at 05:38
Mark_J1 Rear Admiral	Posted: 11 February 2017 at 11:15
Jim Sub Lieutenant	Posted: 11 February 2017 at 20:51
samuel Admiral of the Fleet	Posted: 12 February 2017 at 08:11

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Famous Boat for Sale "Dove"

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******"Dove" Famous boat for sale above link.  

never heard of it...  

Did you click on link? Read this: Actually the boat for sale is the one used in the last third of the circumnavigation (actual name was "Return of Dove". First Dove was destroyed in Hurricane where it was left on St Thomas. From wikipedia: Robin started his journey on the original Dove, a 24 foot Lapworth sloop. On reaching the Caribbean, Dove was replaced by Return of Dove, a 33 foot Allied Luders sloop.[2] Dove sank in Hurricane Marilyn in 1995. "The Return of Dove was found in Hawaii by Mark and Beverly Langley in 2000. They restored her in 2001. She was sold again in 2004 and is believed to be still in Hawaii.[3]"  

he boats: Dove and Return of Dove Robin started his journey on the original Dove, a 24 foot Lapworth sloop. On reaching the Caribbean, Dove was replaced by Return of Dove, a 33 foot Allied Luders sloop.[2] Dove sank in Hurricane Marilyn in 1995. The Return of Dove was found in Hawaii by Mark and Beverly Langley in 2000. They restored her in 2001. She was sold again in 2004 and is believed to be still in Hawaii.[3] documentation isn't even mentioned? The ad is trying to hard to sell the boat as famous but provides very little information otherwise.  

I am 99.9% sure the boat for sale is "Return of Dove". In 1981 I delivered a boat from Tampa Florida to St. Thomas. At that time I had not heard of the Dove story. A crew member looked to the boat docked next to us and said "look, it is the Dove". Next to us was the 24 foot 1st Dove. I later read the National Geographic articles. Also for sale is the Monitor wind vane: http://honolulu.craigslist.org/oah/boa/3073536127.html  

Man, that movie was bad! Nice piece to have though...  

I read somthing a while back that said National Geographic was getting a little upset with Robin as there was not much action happening during his sail. I guess they wanted more typoons and such. I saw the movie over 25 years ago so don't remember much. I need to see it again. There were three issues of National Geographic and those articles were good.  

I think the movie is on Netflix.  

Followed the story, saw the movie. But that was many years ago. Robin Lee Graham moved on to another adventure in his life. What does any of that have to do with the value of the boat in this or any competitive market? Aside from the past commercial exposure it is not a vintage or pedigreed boat. Like anything else, it is worth only what it is worth to an informed, knowledgable, willing and capable buyer. Right move cassey1999, reduce price to develop a sale - IMHO  

It's not my boat and I am not involved in sale. Know nothing of the boat or owner besides what I have presented. Boat seems to be a fair price for its condition and capabilities.  

I hate admit it but I think watching that movie way back about 1975 is why I got interested in sailing on the first place. That and moving to the shores of Lake Huron and not seeing any ski hills, sold my skis and bought a sailboat.  

Looks like an interesting boat though. I wouldn't mind chartering an older boat like this if I could find one to charter. Anyone know of anywhere that does that?  

The movie was good, but like a lot of movies, not quite correct on many items. Nor would I pay more $$ to have this boat. Just another plastic tub IMHO! No better worst than my Jeanneau, other than that boat has been written about, been in NG, etc. The big issue is that it is in Hawaii vs the mainland somewhere, then it probably would have gotten a few more $$, or been able to be sold for a bit more. Marty  

The movie - which I saw for the first time last year - was pretty awful, but I followed the stories in NG magazine as a kid.  

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Saiboat dove ii is abandoned and adrift in north atlantic.

The yacht with five crew on board was caught by storm, suffering water ingress and in danger of sinking.

Weather conditions were particularly harsh with a swell of up to six meters. The crew sent distress call to the local authorities, which transferred the call to Rescue Coordination Center. The bulk carrier Newseas Jade reported to the distress call and headed to the troubled sailing yacht, but was unable to evacuate the people, due to severe storm. However, the cargo ship remained near the yacht and acted as breakwater, monitoring the development of the situation.

Several hours later at the scene of the troubled sailing yacht Dove II arrived also another bulk carrier Asia Pearl V, which was also unable to rescue the distressed crew. Another sailing yacht Tilly Mint, which was also in vicinity headed to the troubled boat. Being sheltered by the two cargo ships, the Tilly Mint succeeded to maneuver and reach the troubled yacht, evacuating all the five people, including two children. The large-scale search and rescue operation was successful, but the salvage was not possible and the yacht was remained adrift and disabled in North Atlantic.

The rescued people were in good health and without need of medical assistance. The cargo ships were released to resume their voyages. The sailing yacht Tilly Mint headed to Caribbean, where the distressed family will be disembarked.

Luckily the situation with the troubled yachtsmen developed without injuries and casualties.

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Source : Maritime Herald 

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Register Log In Dove 2 Yacht abandoned at sea Forum Statistics Top Posters(30 Days) 166 81 77 49 40 37 35 29 21 19 Member Spotlight Vancouver, WA Joined: March 2004   Today's Birthdays , 8 registered members ( , , , , , , 2 invisible), 2,131 guests, and 345 spiders. Admin, Global Mod, Mod Previous Thread Next Thread Print Thread Rate Thread 02/03/2017 10:05 PM 02/03/2017 10:05 PM Joined: Oct 2000 Posts: 4,282 Traveler   Traveler Joined: Oct 2000 Posts: 4,282 If you can help please do so. 10:17 PM. BVI Sponsors [ ] 02/05/2017 12:21 AM 02/05/2017 12:21 AM Joined: Feb 2013 Posts: 483   Joined: Feb 2013 Posts: 483 [ ] 02/06/2017 12:05 PM 02/06/2017 12:05 PM Joined: May 2008 Posts: 859   Joined: May 2008 Posts: 859 [ ] 02/06/2017 12:23 PM 02/06/2017 12:23 PM Joined: Nov 2014 Posts: 1,049   Joined: Nov 2014 Posts: 1,049 [ ] 02/06/2017 06:27 PM 02/06/2017 06:27 PM Joined: Oct 2000 Posts: 4,282 Traveler   Traveler Joined: Oct 2000 Posts: 4,282 View Profile Send Private Message View Homepage Follow User Show Forum Posts View Profile Send Private Message Follow User Show Forum Posts Register Log In Dove 2 Yacht abandoned at sea · · 267 IMAGES Slide: DOVE II, mega yacht sailing on Waitematā Harbour, 1989 Slide: DOVE II, mega yacht sailing on Waitematā Harbour, 1989 Slide: DOVE II, mega yacht sailing on Waitematā Harbour, 1989 Video of family's dramatic Atlantic rescue from Dove II is released Slide: DOVE II, mega yacht sailing on Waitematā Harbour, 1989 Slide: DOVE II, mega yacht sailing on Waitematā Harbour, 1989 VIDEO The Khamar-Daban Incident: They Bled from Their Eyes Kem xả Dove 2 trong 1 mới GNN Plus AI Anchor Tells The Story of 2000 Year Old Ship Found Underwater Wreck Diving Expedition Norway 2022 Lovely dove 2 Diver Solves 75 Year Old Mystery After Body Trapped In Plane Grabs Hold Of Him COMMENTS Video of family's dramatic Atlantic rescue from Dove II is released The Coombes family is still appealing for help in tracing Dove II, and are offering a $10,000 reward for the safe recovery of the yacht and their possessions. Dove II was last seen 460 nautical miles due east of Antigua in the Caribbean. The family are currently recovering from their ordeal in St Martin. 12 January 2017 Family appeal to find yacht abandoned mid-Atlantic The abandoned yacht Dove II. TAGS: coastguard rescue sailing transatlantic. A family from Newquay, Cornwall are appealing to the boating community for help in finding their yacht after being forced to abandon it during a transatlantic crossing. James and Fran Coombes, their two children Heath (aged nine) and Isla (aged seven), and crew Tony ... Bluewater rescue in the north Atlantic as a family trip turns to disaster Three days from landfall in Barbados, a family adventure turned into a 60-hour ordeal, when the rudder came off Hanse 531 Dove II. A couple, their stepfather and two young children have been rescued from a yacht that ran into rudder problems in the Atlantic 500nm east of Martinique. Fran Willcocks, stepfather Tony White and husband James ... Rescue: vessel still missing but family is safe "Keep a lookout for the sailing vessel Dove II," that's what mariners in the Eastern Caribbean ... the yacht that rescued the displaced family. It's a well-done video, and one worth watching, as it contains a number of lessons. ... The back side of the story — what went on prior to the rescue — can be found on the Coombes family's ... Rescue in the Atlantic Seas were 5 to 10 feet with an occasional 15-footer, and the 600-foot cargo ship was in position, attempting to create a breakwater. Kaiser tried to bring his 67-foot Discovery Tilly Mint alongside Dove II, a 56-foot sloop that had lost her rudder two days earlier. But as Tilly Mint neared, the yachts both rolled. Their masts nearly collided. Rescue of Atrevida II: Two New Jersey men adrift at sea, then found Two men and a sailboat vanished into open ocean. 10 days later, a miracle arrived. His voice was broken up by a bad connection. But on Dec. 3, Joe DiTomasso left a message with his daughter: The ... Inside Bayesian yacht belonging to Mike Lynch, 4 bodies found Six of the ship's 22 passengers, including Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter, went missing after the yacht plunged under the water just before 5 a.m. on Monday as a storm swept across the area. Family appeals to find yacht abandoned mid-Atlantic The yacht Dove II was equipped with a satellite telephone which they used to contact the UK Coastguard in Falmouth, and the Coastguard in Martinique. Skipper James battled 18ft seas and gales for three days and nights in an attempt to rig a temporary rudder, setting out drogues and fighting the elements before he made the decision to abandon ... Tributes to Mike and Hannah Lynch as family speak of shock The yacht's captain, James Cutfield, his eight surviving crew members and passengers have been questioned by the Coast Guard on behalf of prosecutors. Read more Bayesian sinking: The key questions ... DOVE II Wed Dec 21 19:11:09 CET 2016 Timsen. On Dec 21, 2016, the s/y "Tilly Mint" rescued the crew of five of the "Dove II" which was damaged by a storm off Martinique. At 7.30 p.m., the CROSS AG was contacted by its French CROSS counterpart, relaying the distress call of the English sailboat which had lost its rudder in the middle of the Atlantic. documented documented. Scot January 23, 2017. It's a struggle at times to get through this nearly 30-minute long homemade documentary of the recent rescue of the Dove II, but real footage of boats in trouble is rare and there's plenty to learn in this video from the rescuing crew aboard Tilly Mint (and video producers) from Monday Never. Noonsite.com On December 21st, 2016, cruising yacht "Dove II", owned and loved by the Coombes family from the UK, had to be abandoned near the end of her TransAtlantic from the Canaries with rudder failure close to Barbados. The family has been searching for their home ever since. The cruising community is asked to be on the lookout for the drifting ... Sicily yacht survivor: 'For two seconds I lost my baby in the sea' "For two seconds I lost my daughter in the sea then quickly hugged her amid the fury of the waves," the paper quoted her as saying. Charlotte said she held her baby "afloat with all my ... Family reveal 'nightmare' they suffered trying to sail the Atlantic A BRITISH family have revealed the "nightmare" they suffered attempting to sail a yacht across the Atlantic. James and Fran Coombes set off from Portugal for Barbados on board Dove II with ... Superyacht sinks latest: Investigators reveal where bodies were found Monday 19 August. The Bayesian yacht, flying a British flag, sinks at around 5am local time when the area was hit by a tornado. Fifteen people are rescued from the 56 metre vessel - including a ... 1 dead, 6 missing after luxury yacht Bayesian sinks off Sicily British tech magnate Mike Lynch, 2 US citizens among missing after luxury yacht sinks off Sicily 15 people were rescued and one body believed to be the cook was found near the wreck, but six ... Tributes paid to Mike Lynch and daughter Hannah Lynch Tributes have been paid to 18-year-old Hannah Lynch, after divers recovered what is believed to be her body in the wreckage of a luxury yacht which sank off Sicily. Hannah was the last person ... Bodies found inside luxury yacht that sank off Sicily Built by the Italian shipbuilder Perini Navi in 2008, the U.K.-registered yacht could carry 12 guests and a crew of up to 10, according to online specialist boating sites. Mike Lynch yacht latest: Two more crew under investigation as ... The five people that rescue divers found together appeared to have gathered in the first cabin on the left of the superyacht in an attempt to escape, reported The Telegraph, while the 18-year-old ... Tech billionaire Mike Lynch identified among bodies recovered from Moment luxury yacht sinks off coast of Italy caught on camera, with 6 presumed dead. Grainy CCTV footage shows the moment a storm struck the Bayesian luxury yacht, which sank Aug. 19, 2024, off ... Crew member on Mike Lynch yacht tells of being thrown into water A crew member on Mike Lynch's yacht has spoken of being thrown into the water and efforts to rescue passengers as a storm sank the vessel off Sicily this month, in a disaster that killed the ... Robin Lee Graham Robin Lee Graham (born March 5, 1949) is an American sailor.He set out to sail around the world alone as a teenager in the summer of 1965. National Geographic magazine carried the story in installments (October 1968, April 1969, October 1970), and he co-wrote a book, titled Dove, detailing his journey.. At age sixteen, Graham sailed alone from California to Hawaii on July 21, 1965. Dove 2 Yacht abandoned at sea Posts: 4,278. Vero Beach, Fl and South Sound... This is a blog for Dove 2 yacht which was abandoned at sea as the rudder was lost, Dove 2 abandoned at sea. If you can help please do so. Last edited by tpcook; 02/03/2017 10:17 PM . tpcook. BVI Sponsors. Re: Dove 2 Yacht abandoned at sea [ Re: tpcook ] #119784. 02/05/2017 12:21 AM. Arrest over two Britons found dead in car in Sweden Farooq Abdulrazak, 37, and Juan Cifuentes, 33, from north London, were found in the shell of a Toyota Rav 4 on 14 July. Swedish police previously said both men had been shot before their car was ... Rudder problems on Atlantic Crossing On the 4th of December, 2016, we set off from Tenerife in our 53 foot yacht with a crew of 5. Myself, my wife, our 2 children aged 7 & 9 and my step father in law. Like most yachts crossing last year, we struggled the first week, with light winds down to 20 30. The second week the trades blew a steady 20-30 knots which meant we made up for the ... Amanda J. Dove Update: Not found but mystery solved. STOLEN YACHT! 1988 37' ED MONK HULL TRAWLER. WAS IN SLIP A10 AT THE DISCOVERY BAY MARINA. 2 BEDROOM, 2 BATH VALUED AT APPROX $150K WITH THE DINGHY. HAS BEEN... Famous Boat for Sale "Dove" he boats: Dove and Return of Dove Robin started his journey on the original Dove, a 24 foot Lapworth sloop. On reaching the Caribbean, Dove was replaced by Return of Dove, a 33 foot Allied Luders sloop.[2] Dove sank in Hurricane Marilyn in 1995. The Return of Dove was found in Hawaii by Mark and Beverly Langley in 2000. They restored her in 2001. Saiboat Dove II is abandoned and adrift in North Atlantic Saiboat Dove II is abandoned and adrift in North Atlantic. The yacht with five crew on board was caught by storm, suffering water ingress and in danger of sinking. Weather conditions were particularly harsh with a swell of up to six meters. The crew sent distress call to the local authorities, which transferred the call to Rescue Coordination ... Dove 2 Yacht abandoned at sea This is a blog for Dove 2 yacht which was abandoned at sea as the rudder was lost, Dove 2 abandoned at sea If you can help please do so. Last edited by tpcook; 02/03/2017 10:17 PM. tpcook BVI Sponsors Re: Dove 2 Yacht abandoned at sea #119784 02/05/2017 12:21 AM 02/05/2017 12:21 AM: Joined: Feb 2013 Posts: 483 catamaran gulet motorboat powerboat riverboat sailboat trimaran yacht