Lessons from tragic loss of yacht Sea Jade's skipper

by Melania Gosling/Sail-World on 10 May 2009 Trying to learn from others' mistakes - and hopefully as a result not making the same mistake oneself - is part of the continuous learning curve that is the life of an ocean sailor.

A British naval ship, the Gold Rover, sailed from St Helena this week to search for the abandoned Cape Town yacht Sea Jade, which was last sighted 450 nautical miles south of the island.

Evidence on the yacht, which was earlier sighted drifting alone, pointed to the story of the tragic end of the life of the experienced sailor.

The yacht belonged to Capetonian Nic Robinson, 47, who was sailing it alone from St Helena to Cape Town.

It was spotted drifting in the Atlantic Ocean on April 29 by a fishing vessel after the Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Cape Town put out a message to ships in the area to be on the lookout for it.

Robinson was overdue in Walvis Bay, Namibia, from where he was to sail down the coast to Cape Town.

When the fishing vessel saw the Sea Jade there was no one on board.

Robinson's brother-in-law, Otto Holicki, said from Johannesburg on Wednesday that the Gold Rover's captain had 'kindly agreed' to take on board a crew of yachtsmen from St Helena to be dropped off at the yacht if they found it.

The yachtsmen hope to sail the boat back to St Helena, while the Gold Rover is on its way to the Falklands.

'We've been plotting the Sea Jade's likely drift, but there's a lot of ocean out there,' Holicki said.

'If they don't find it by the end of Wednesday the Gold Rover can't spend any more time looking for it.

'Then the guys from St Helena will have to continue on to the Falklands and I will have to fly them back to Ascension Island.'

Robinson and his girlfriend, Wendy Meyer, 30, arrived in St Helena on the Sea Jade in November.

Meyer died on the island in January after taking an overdose of her medication for her bipolar condition.

'Nic was very upset about Wendy's death. He had to hang around until the inquest was finished, and that was almost four months,' Holicki said. Meyer's body was brought back to Cape Town on the HMS St Helena.

Holicki said the photograph of the Sea Jade taken by a fishing vessel showed Robinson's broken safety harness up the mast.

'His life vest was not on board so we assume he went up the mast and the safety harness broke and he went overboard,' he said.

Veteran yachtsman John Martin said the foresails had been lashed down, but the mainsail had had only one lashing.

'It looks as if the mainsail came down very quickly,' Martin said.

'The main halyard broke or a shackle came undone, and he put one lash around the mainsail to stop it blowing away. Then he would have gone up the mast in some sort of safety harness to sort out whatever had gone wrong.'

He added that it appeared as if the harness had broken or the tackle securing it had come adrift. He had apparently not attached a second, safety line.