UPDATE: Support floods in for missing yachtsmen’s families
The families will remain in close contact with NSRI for any new information regarding the missing catamaran.
SUPPORT has been pouring in for the families of the three missing yachtsmen following a breakthrough in the search on Monday, 14 January.
Anthony Murray (58), formerly from Cowies Hill, and two crew members, Reginald (Reg) Robertson (60) and Jaryd Payne (20), set sail from Cape Town harbour on 14 December, 2015 to deliver a Leopard 44 catamaran to Phuket, Thailand, and their expected date of arrival was 2 February. Family members grew concerned when the boat had still not arrived 10 days after its expected date of arrival.
According to Storme Robertson’s recent post on the Searching for Anthony, Reg and Jaryd Facebook page, since sharing the astonishing news of the third sighting of what they believe could be that of the capsized yacht, Moorings A5130, the families of the crew have had an overwhelming response from the community – and of course the sailing community at large.
“We are so incredibly grateful for all the offers of help and support in locating the upturned hull and I would like to share with you an estimated drift plot which has been shared with me. The plot shows the sighting position 132 hours ago (on Tuesday, 19 January at 8pm) and another position at 10.23UTC with drift of 1kt@240deg. This is an estimate using drift only – light winds have not been taken into account, but as the vessel is mostly submerged there is possibly little wind factor and of course the drift rate could be slower due to the resistance of the boat below the surface,” wrote Roberston.
Nicole Payne said she spoke to Mark Hughes, the operations director at NSRI, who has notified all their station commanders along the East Coast to Cape Coast. Should they be notified of a positive sighting, they will send out a boat to investigate and place a satellite tracking device onto the hull of the boat, which will stay active for two months. Also, the hull will be drifting closer to shore and as soon as it’s within the 40 nautical mile range, they will send the boat out that is stationed there. He also advised her that broadcasts via MRCC to shipping vessels are going out to be on the lookout for the capsized vessel.
“We are still continuing to follow up on all other leads as well as staying in close contact with Mark at NSRI with any new info received,” wrote Payne.
