In distress at sea: Video of the sinking of Santiano musician Pete Sage's Jeanneau

It happened so quickly. How could this happen? Car keys, papers, everything gone."

The comments made by Pete Sage and his wife in the video are almost more depressing than the already gruesome images. After transferring to the dinghy, Sage filmed the sinking of his yacht, which then only lasted around two minutes.

Pete Sage, known as a member of Santiano, was on his way from Heiligenhafen to Olpenitz with his wife and their Sun Odyssey 410 on Friday afternoon when they got into distress at Schönberg.

• Zn the description of the accident

"My wife went down into the ship to get a drink. Suddenly her feet were surrounded by a surge of water," remembers Pete Sage. She then switched on the bilge pump, but the water continued to rise rapidly. "I realised with horror that the inrush of water could no longer be stopped," he continues.

The investigation into the cause revealed an incorrectly installed retractable bow thruster. A flange of the housing box on the Jeanneau had only been glued in from the outside with sealing compound and not laminated on, and a large leakage had occurred as a result of the water pressure, which would have caused the Sun Odyssey to sink within around ten minutes, according to Sage's lawyer Jochen-P. Kunze from Jensburg. Kunze from Flensburg.

The Jeanneau shipyard had already initiated a recall campaign on 1 March, the aim of which was to strengthen the bonding of retractable bow thrusters, including those on the Sun Odyssey 410 model that sank. However, the shipyard does not currently see any connection between the accident and this action.

• Jeanneau reacts to the sinking of the Sun Odyssey 410