Mystery Deepens - Second Ghost Ship in Six Months

by Sail-World Cruising/Courier Mail on 20 Apr 2007 In September last year, the schooner Bel Amica was found drifting off the Italian coast with a half eaten meal, charts of the Mediterranean and piles of clothes abandoned. While the owner has since been found, no satisfactory explanation of the incident has ever been recorded.

Now, the Courier Mail reports, a ghost yacht has been found drifting off the north east Australian coast, in Queensland, with computers running and even food on a table ready to eat - but no crew.

The 12-metre catamaran was first spotted by a coastwatch aircraft on Wednesday near the outer Great Barrier Reef after leaving coastal tourist town Airlie Beach on Sunday.

A rescue helicopter identified the yacht overnight and confirmed there was no one aboard.

Police have confirmed three men are missing.

Emergency Management Queensland spokesman Jon Hall said crews were puzzled by what they found because 'everything appeared normal'.

'They got on board and said the engine was running, the computers were running, there was a laptop set up on the table which was running, the radio was working, the GPS was working and there was food and utensils set on the table ready to eat, but no sign of the crew,' he said.

Three life jackets and survival equipment, including an emergency beacon, were found on board, but no life rafts.

'It was a bit strange.'

Mr Hall said crews returned to the boat this morning, around 80 nautical miles off Townsville, to check if anyone was trapped inside.

He said they retrieved the boat's GPS system to analyse data for clues to the mysterious disappearance of the crew.

'That will now enable us to track backwards where this yacht has actually been in the last few days, and we're hoping that can pinpoint the search area for the missing crew,' he said.

There are currently up to 12 aircraft _ including including two specialised search and rescue planes, an army Black Hawk helicopter and the Queensland rescue helicopter _ in the sky searching a massive area from the Whitsundays in the south to Davies Reef and Cape Bowling Green, near Ayr.

As well as the aerial search, four Volunteer Marine Rescue vessels will conduct searches along the coastline.

The families of the three men have been informed of the incident and are being kept abreast of the search efforts.

Queensland police have confirmed that the three men who have disappeared from a yacht which was found 80 nautical miles off Townsville are all from Western Australia.

They say they are searching for the men who are aged 56, 63 and 69.

Chief Superintendant Roy Wall says they do not know how long the search will continue.

'That's yet to be determined and it depends on media advice about survival times but there's certainly no intention at this stage to scale down the search at all,' he said.