Another Man Overboard Tragedy from Sailing Boat

by Kevin Dowling The Guardian/Sail-World on 28 Sep 2008 Yet again a sailor has been lost by going overboard at sea and unable to regain the boat, leaving the boat to be found still sailing - this time in the North Sea.

Earlier this year in a bizarre incident in the Coral Sea no less than three sailors went overboard leaving their catamaran sailing on.

In the latest North Sea incident the search was called off when a body was found off the Essex coast

Helicopter crew took the body to Colchester hospital where formal identification was to take place.

Paul Cook, 69, skipper of the yacht, Snowfire, is thought to have drowned after falling overboard while his boat was under full sail and controlled by an autopilot. It is believed he could have been floundering in the water as his craft sailed on. The yacht was discovered after it struck moorings at West Mersea at the mouth of the Blackwater river at around 5.30pm on Thursday. The autopilot device was programmed to sail towards shore.

Cook kept his seven-metre yacht at moorings near Tollesbury, Essex. He has not been seen since he set sail on Thursday morning.

Lifeboat crews who boarded the yacht described it as a 'Marie Celeste' - the most famous of ship mysteries where all eight of the crew and two passengers were missing when the brigantine was found still sailing in the Atlantic in 1872. In spite of investigations and years of conjecture, no satisfactory explanation has ever been offered for the disappearance of the crew.

Earlier this year the catamaran Kaz II was found in the Coral Sea still sailing, sails shredded, with the motor and ship's computer still running, the remains of a meal and neatly folded clothes. A court enquiry surmised that one sailor had gone overboard, another went to save him, and the third, in trying to turn to reach the two sailors, was knocked overboard by the swinging boom. However, this conclusion was conjecture by the judge in the case.

In the latest incident on the Snowfire, there was a copy of the day's newspaper and the log had been filled in during the afternoon. The last entry showed Cook had decided to head for home at 1.50pm, due to bad weather, when he had reached the Wallett Spitway marker buoy five miles south of Clacton.

The rescue effort, focusing on an area of 10 square miles around Wallet Spitway and involving three coastguard teams, three RNLI lifeboats and an RAF helicopter from Wattisham, Suffolk, began Thursday night and resumed yesterday morning.

A Thames coastguard spokesman said: 'The yacht's self-steering mechanism was in operation and the Snowfire was still on course when it reached land. All we know is between that last log entry and the time the boat ran aground - somewhere in that timescale he has gone overboard.'