On 18 January 2016 the families of Anthony Murray (58), Reginald Robertson (59) and Jaryd Payne (20) – last heard from on 18 January 2015 – were informed that the Brazilian Navy Ship Amazonas had spotted and photographed the upturned hull of a luxury catamaran, a Moorings A5130, Sunsail RC044-978, off the coast of Port Elizabeth. See: Tragic capsized catamaran drifts past Port Elizabeth.
Murray, Robertson and Payne had been on a delivery trip to Phuket, Thailand and were last heard from via satellite phone whilst 2190 Nautical Miles north-west of Peth, Australia.
In a strange twist of fate it appears that the tragic catamaran is now returning to the shores that she first departed from.
On 23 January 2016 River Air made a King Air aircraft available for an aerial search covering over 4250 square miles of open ocean and spent 6.5 hours in the air.
After receiving reports of an upturned catamaran hull at 15h30 and also on 23 January, NSRI Agulhas duty crew launched a sea rescue craft to attempt to locate the capsized craft reportedly sighted approximately 42 nautical miles off-shore of Agulhas.
NSRI Hermanus launched a sea rescue craft to stand-by in the area as back-up.
Hopes are that she is the Sunsail Catamaran that has been missing for a year. A faded logo seen on the hull certainly appears to be the same as the Sunsail Group logo (see below).
On arrival on the scene, following a brief search, the upturned hull of the Catamaran was photographed by NSRI and NSRI rescue swimmers free dived to investigate markings and as much as could be investigated under the hull.
NSRI reported that they could not positively identify her as Sunsail saying that no physical markings were found on the Catamaran to assist to identify her and photographs have been sent to MRCC (Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre), family of the missing crew of the Catamaran Sunsail and to the Catamaran Sunsail owners to allow them to investigate further.
NSRI Agulhas attached a satellite tracking beacon to the casualty Catamaran which MRCC will monitor to keep track of the position while Telkom Maritime Radio Services broadcast a Maritime Navigational Warning to warn ships in the area of the navigational hazard and the tug boat Peridot operated by Smit Amandla were activated and they will attempt to tow the casualty Catamaran to an appropriate Port.
During the night NSRI Hermanus dispatched to investigate the option of attaching a tow-line to the catamaran to pull her from shipping lanes but the effort was aborted and MRCC are tracking the casualty Catamaran until the tug Peridot arrives on the scene.
The families expressed their feelings on their Facebook group; “We have been informed that MRCC has, at last, deployed the tug Peridot which is on its way to the hull. We have requested to be kept up-to-date with its progress. A special thank you to River Air for donating their aircraft for yesterday’s air search. We know that the NSRI teams only got back in the early hours of this morning and, again, words can’t express how grateful we are to this organisation and its volunteers – especially Station 30 Nsri Agulhas and Station 17 in Hermanus. Thank you again to everyone in this community. The support we feel from you all is what is helping keep us going during this intensely emotional time.”
The three sailors had been employed to deliver the vessel to Thailand on behalf of the Sunsail Group. Sunsail is one of five brands belonging to TUI Marine, the others being ‘The Moorings’, ‘le boat’, ‘Footloose Sailing Charters’ and ‘Leopard Catamarans’. TUI Marine is part of the TUI Group – a Tourism and Leisure group with a turnover of more than 20.1 Billion Euros and a 2014/15 profit of over 1 Billion Euros. Among their many products and brands the TUI Group boast of 1 800 travel agencies and leading online portals, six airlines, more than 140 aircraft, over 300 hotels with 210 000 beds, 13 cruise liners, countless incoming agencies in all major holiday destinations around the globe and over 30 Million customers.
MyPE has reached out to the TUI Group’s Marion Telsnig, and await feedback.
Alan Straton
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