Rediscovered the day before yesterday by the "Turn the Tide on Plastic" team in the Volvo Ocean Race, the "Sea Nymph" owned by Americans Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiaba was abandoned at the end of October 2017 - and has been drifting around the Pacific as a ghost ship ever since. As flotsam without lights or AIS signals, she was almost invisible to the regatta crews, and it was only by luck that a potentially devastating collision did not occur.
This leads to the question of which and how many yachts are still drifting lonely on the seas alongside rubbish and containers. While the latter is probably impossible to answer, at least a few known cases can be pointed out. On the following pages are six abandoned yachts that may still be drifting around, if they have not yet sunk or been scuttled.
Tania Aebis "Varuna"
The striking dark red Contessa 26 "Varuna", in which Tania Aebi became the youngest person (and the first American) to complete a solo circumnavigation in 1987, has passed through several owners in the years since. As has only now become known, her current owner abandoned her at the end of August on her way from the Azores to Gibraltar due to technical problems (here to the message). At the beginning of September 2017, it sank about 600 nautical miles west of the strait, and since then the "Varuna" has been drifting on the Atlantic as a ghost ship, presumably heading south.
Swan 44: "Hummingbird"
At the beginning of May 2015, around 500 nautical miles south of the Azores, the crew of the "Kolibri", a Swan 44 sailing under the Norwegian flag, were rescued by a helicopter from the Portuguese coastguard. The "Kolibri" - along with four other yachts - had been caught in a heavy storm. All of the crews made distress calls, one of the boats even sank and a small child died of hypothermia shortly after being rescued from the water.
As the Portuguese navy had recorded the rescue operations on video, many sailors wondered shortly after the emergencies became known why the highly experienced Norwegian crew had voluntarily abandoned their apparently largely intact ship. Even in an interview published later in the Norwegian media, the skipper was unable to provide a completely convincing explanation. He stated that the ship had capsized several times, water had got in and there had been chaos on board. Click here for the YACHT report
Sun Magic 44: "Sayo"
On 25 February, fishermen discovered the masted Sun Magic 44 "Sayo" off the coast of the Philippines. A gruesome find: the mummified body of its skipper, 59-year-old Manfred B. from North Rhine-Westphalia, was sitting at the chart table. The autopsy report allegedly stated that the skipper had died around seven days earlier. It later became clear that this could not be true: In fact, the body of the single-handed sailor had been discovered around a month earlier by a regatta crew. They even boarded the boat and recorded the gruesome discovery on video camera. The "sailor mummy" was the subject of tabloid reports for days.
"Troll"
Thomas Mallunat and his wife left their steel yacht "Troll" at sea with the hatches open in 2014 because the sailor had fallen seriously ill. The yacht drifted around until August 2015, when it was spotted by the Irish Navy - and sunk. Although the "Troll" was in a pitiful condition, owner Mallunat had even considered salvaging the shipwrecked vessel. When he learnt that the ship had already sunk, he was outraged. He gave a detailed interview in YACHT.
Open 60 - "Cheminées Poujoulat"
On the night of 24 December 2014, Swiss sailor Bernard Stamm's boat broke in half off the English coast during the return passage from the Transat Jacques Vabre and began to sink. Stamm and his co-sailor Damien Guillou gave up the yacht and had themselves rescued. Later, a naval aviator discovered the wreck, which had not sunk after all, about 14 nautical miles off the island of Vierge. It was towed into the harbour of Aber Wrac'h and secured to a buoy for the time being. Stamm was there and the operation was documented on video. YACHT also reported on the event.
The bow section was apparently only connected to the hull by a few lines and floated behind during towing. Stamm explains the fact that the individual parts are still floating with the watertight bulkheads that he closed during the accident.
"Generali"
The case of the "Generali" from 2008 proves that sometimes even regatta yachts are abandoned. After the Frenchman Yann Eliès had to wait two days for rescue by the Australian navy with broken legs and ribs and let the ship drift, it is now adrift somewhere around 700 nautical miles south of Australia in the Indian Ocean. The position beacon is no longer transmitting and the sailing team on standby to recover the newbuilding can no longer locate the ship.
