One dead when yacht capsizes near Great Barrier Reef

(Meager) According to Australian police, a sailor died when a racing yacht capsized off the coast of Queensland over the weekend.

At around 05:00 on Sunday morning, an EPIRB on the yacht was activated about four nautical miles off Lady Elliot Island, an ecological resort in the Great Barrier Reef, about 45 nautical miles from the mainland. The vessel had lost its keel and capsized.

Several vessels and police were on the scene. RACQ LifeFlight, a non-profit helicopter rescue organisation based in Queensland, dispatched a rescue aircraft to the scene. The crew found that two survivors – a father and son, aged 62 and 27 respectively – had made it safely onto the hull of the capsized yacht. They were winched aboard the helicopter and taken to a local hospital for assessment.

Divers search near the spot where the boat capsized (Queensland Police)

A third man, aged 65, disappeared when the boat capsized and police divers continued the search. His body was found at around 2:00 p.m. local time.

Queensland Police were unable to identify the vessel, but Australian sailing community forums and the boat’s previous owner identified the yacht as the Sayer 11 racing boat. run awaya high-performance carbon fibre monohull designed for the 2003 Melbourne-Osaka Race. The vessel reportedly suffered keel damage once before, during the 2007 edition of the same race.

Keel fractures are a rare but catastrophic accident in the world of yachting and mainly affect racing yachts with high performance keel designs. The most notorious example was the loss of the yacht Cheeki Rafiki in 2015: The ship’s bulbous keel broke off, causing it to capsize quickly and killing all men on board.

Runaway (File image courtesy of Rolex Sydney-Hobart)