UPDATE: Families call for inquest into catamaran’s disappearance

FAMILIES of the three missing yachtsmen – Anthony Murray, Reginald Robertson and Jaryd Payne – aboard Sunsail’s Moorings A5130, are calling for an inquest into the incident and a full investigation.

According to an official statement made by the families on Monday, 1 February, they have been plunged back into a state of utter distress at news that the Moorings A5130 is again lost at sea.

This distress mainly follows the lack of support from the Sunsail/Tui Group, the owners of Moorings A5130.

“We learnt through our lawyers as well as press statements issued by Sunsail UK that representatives of the Tui Group were in Cape Town. They flew in from the USA and other territories to ‘meet the vessel’. Since the start of this latest sighting, we have asked repeatedly to meet with these representatives. On Saturday, 30 January, our lawyers were informed that the Sunsail/Tui Group does not believe that it will ‘serve any purpose’ to meet with us.

“This goes directly against an official Sunsail press release dated 25 January, which states, ‘Any news will be reported first to the families and we will respect their wishes in terms of next steps. It remains a priority for Sunsail to find out what happened to the missing crew and boat.’ Although distressed and deeply angry at this, we are not surprised at Sunsail/Tui Group’s refusal of our request,” wrote the families.

From the onset, the three families have had to conduct first a search and rescue mission, and now a search and recovery effort.

“We implored the company for help and information when we realised we had not heard from our men in the days after 18 January, 2015, only to be told that we were over-reacting. We were told that our men had encountered ‘a little bit of bad weather’. We were never told about their position in the path of Cyclone Bansi, which reached windspeeds of over 180 kilometres per hour. We reported the catamaran missing to the Maritime Rescue Co-ordinating Centre on 11 and 12 February, 2015. The company resisted this most fundamental of nautical codes – although, since then, we have had to repeatedly request Sunsail/Tui Group not to misrepresent this fact.”

When the families’ lawyers informed them on 18 January that an upturned hull had been sighted by the Brazilian naval vessel, Amazonas, 78 nautical miles off Cape Recife (near Port Elizabeth), they were stunned. The families were only told about the sighting a full four days after it had been made, and also informed by the authorities that they would not be deploying any resources to locate the hull. The families immediately set about doing what they could to bring the hull safely to port.

With the help of its Facebook page (Searching For Anthony, Reg & Jaryd), the families got the commitment of the NSRI to go to sea and put a satellite tracker on the hull if it came within reach of any of their coastal station vessels. In addition, the families took the decision to fund two air searches, with the help of experienced search and rescue pilot, Donovan Jordaan, River Air and Sheltam Aviation. These took place on 22 and 23 January this year.

The NSRI informed the families that another vessel had sighted the hull 42 nautical miles off Cape Aghulas on Saturday, 23 January, and they despatched two of their vessels to attach a satellite beacon.

“For this, and the images their divers captured, we will always remain grateful. After this, and with significant pressure from ourselves and our community, SAMSA authorised the tug Peridot to do the salvage early that evening. For reasons that we don’t fully understand, and which add to our ongoing pain and suffering, the tug lost the hull during the journey back to port and it has not been seen or found since. We now have certainty that the hull is that of Moorings A5130, the Leopard 44 catamaran that our men were delivering to Thailand, where it would become part of Sunsail’s leisure fleet. This has come through underwater images captured by the NSRI divers on 23 January, which include the yacht’s identification as a ‘Leopard 44’ and the builder’s name, ‘Robertson & Caine (PTY) LTD, Cape Town, South Africa’. These images show that the catamaran had drifted thousands of kilometres to come home.”

Throughout this whole nightmare, the families have been supported and helped in ways that they never thought possible. Over just the past few days, a Cape Town pilot has donated hours of flying over the potential new area of drift in search of the hull. This support by individuals – friends, family, strangers – and organisations has played no small part in helping them get through an unimaginably traumatic year. But the Sunsail/Tui Group has not been among these.

“We have lost jobs and income. Our families have felt the impact of our collective dedication to first rescuing our loved ones and then putting every effort into the recovery of the hull after it was sighted not once, but four times. We have suffered – and we keep on suffering. But we will not stop. We are calling for an inquest into the incident and a full investigation.

“We hereby commit to dedicate ourselves to finding, not just the answers of what happened to our loved ones, but to improving conditions, establishing fairer practices and enforcing compliance with legislation for working sailors around the world. We will do this with the single aim of making their lives safer.”

On a positive note, the families have now successfully set up a South African Trust Fund to urgently help aid the expenses of the search once again – for the missing hull and the other legal expenses that they have incurred since the incident occurred.

“Please, if you can kindly donate any amount, we would be so humbled and sincerely grateful for your help. Should we not use all the funds, the remainder will be put to use for the betterment and safety of working sailors around the world,” said Storme Robertson.

The details of the Murray/Robertson/Payne Salvage Trust are: Standard Bank, Winderemere Branch; account name: The M R and P Salvage Trust; account number 051 456 265; branch code 042 726, (swift code SBZAZA JJ).

The ultimate beneficiary is the NSRI.

UPDATE: Sunsail responds

Marion Telsnig, head of public relations and sustainable development for Ski, Lakes and Mountains, the Sunsail part of TUI Group, said Sunsail had received a request to meet with the families and was happy to organise a private meeting with them, either individually or as a group; however, at the present time, the management of Sunsail are focused on trying to locate the vessel and so it would prefer that any such meeting take place at a later date.
She also added that Sunsail carried out an air search on Friday, 29 January with an independent observer on board the search aircraft, but unfortunately the search was unsuccessful and the vessel was not sighted. Sunsail carried out a further air search on Monday, 1 February for the overturned yacht, but unfortunately this search was also unsuccessful.