Rescue crews fear schooner carrying seven may have sunk

WELLINGTON: Rescue crews searching for a classic American schooner carrying seven people believe the boat sank between New Zealand and Australia, although they haven’t given up hope of finding survivors.

A third day of aerial searches yesterday turned up no sign of the 85- year- old wooden sailboat or its crew. Named Nina, the boat left New Zealand on May 29 bound for Australia. The last known contact with the crew was on June 4. Rescuers were alerted the boat was missing on June 14, but weren’t unduly worried at first as the emergency locater beacon had not been activated.

The six Americans on board include captain David Dyche, 58, his wife Rosemary, 60, and their son David, 17. Also aboard was their friend, Evi Nemeth, 73, a man aged 28, a woman aged 18, and a British man aged 35.

The leader of yesterday’s search efforts, Neville Blakemore at New Zealand’s Rescue Co-ordination Centre, said it was now logical to assume the 21m boat sank in a storm, but it was possible some crew members survived in the life raft that was aboard or by making land.

On the day the boat went missing, a storm hit the area with winds gusting up to 110km/h and waves of up to 8m.

Blakemore said the southern hemisphere winter tended to produce the year’s worst storms, although he wouldn’t normally have expected a sturdy and well- maintained craft like the Nina to sink in such a storm in early June.

Yesterday’s search focused on the coastline around northern New Zealand, including the small Three Kings Islands. Rescuers were looking for wreckage or the life raft.

Blakemore said plane searches earlier this week covered a wide band of ocean between New Zealand and Australia. He said searchers were considering their options for the weekend.

He said the logical conclusion was that the boat sank rapidly, preventing the crew from activating the locator beacon or using other devices aboard, including a satellite phone and a spot beacon. He said that unlike many locator beacons, the one aboard the Nina was not activated by water pressure and wouldn’t start automatically if the boat sank.

Dyche is a qualified captain and he and his family are experienced sailors. Blakemore said the family had been sailing around the world for several years and were often joined on different legs by friends and sailors they met along the way. – Sapa-AP

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