Mystery as yacht 'disappears' in the Southern Atlantic

by Independent Online on 25 Mar 2011 An urgent international search is under way today for a Cape Town yacht that may have met with disaster in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, carrying a crew home from Rio de Janeiro. The City of Cape Town-sponsored yacht, the Spirit of Izivunguvungu, had sailed in the Heineken Cape to Rio yacht race, which ended early last month.

The yacht is skippered by Kader Williams, 30, and has four crew members who are graduates of the Izivunguvungu Sailing Development School.

The yacht was approaching the seas north of the island Tristan da Cunha late last week, and the team’s manager, Manuel Mendez, spoke to Williams on Friday.

But on Sunday, the yacht could suddenly not be reached and communications links have been dead since then, the race’s head of communications, Jean van Rooyen, said last night.

The vessel carried a satellite tracker that continued to 'ping' every hour, giving the yacht’s location, she said.

But race organisers were perplexed and increasingly concerned to see the vessel apparently slowing to a snail’s pace and then going backwards earlier this week.

This prompted race organiser and commodore of the Royal Cape Yacht Club, John Martin, to request that Cape Town Radio issue an international 'all ships alert', which requests that all vessels keep an eye out for the vessel.

Then, at 2pm yesterday, the Spirit of Izivunguvungu’s satellite tracker stopped communicating altogether.

The international alert was immediately escalated to one measure short of a 'Mayday', requesting that the nearest ship to the yacht’s last known co-ordinates actively start searching for the vessel. The yacht’s tracker started 'pinging' again late last night, and at 6am today the vessel was around 140 nautical miles north of Tristan da Cunha.

Van Rooyen reported that the yacht was moving at an exceedingly slow 0.54 knots.

'It’s very worrying - we don’t know what’s going on on that yacht,' she said.

She said the Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre (MRCC) had issued the latest request to ships in the area.

Sources at the MRCC confirmed the alerts, and said South African maritime authorities had requested assistance from Paraguay and Brazil, whose rescue services were supervising the search.

Approached for comment this morning, Mendez said he had been instructed by the MRCC not to comment on the yacht, or his crew’s situation.

Martin was not available last night nor this morning.

Councillor Brett Herron, the city’s mayoral committee member for community services, whose department sponsored the yacht, said he had received information confirming the situation and was awaiting further news.

'It is deeply worrying, but we are monitoring the situation, and will do what we can,' he said.