A yacht has been found off the coast of Australia with the sails set, the engine and computers running, life jackets and emergency beacons intact, and the table set for a meal. There were no signs of anything wrong, save for a torn foresail.All very Marie Celeste, isn't it? Even the torn sail isn't that odd, since it probably happened when the craft fell off the wind and the jib was free to flap about until it tore itself to pieces. What could possibly have happened to have plucked three people into thin air?
At least, it's mysterious if you only rely on the BBC's print version of the story, which leaves out a tiny little detail found as a mere aside in the video report: the liferafts were missing. Suddenly it goes from mysterious to prosaic as the question changes from "How did they disappear?" to "Why did they jump into the liferafts from a perfectly sound boat?"
My money is on strong current, close reef and panic, which is how a friend of mine ended up in the water off the coast of the island of Hawaii clinging to a liferaft case dropped courtesy of the US Coast Guard that lacked any sort of instructions on how to open the blasted thing* while he watched his supposedly doomed catamaran crest a wave against a lava cliff, turn 180 degrees, slip back down without a scratch and head off to New Zealand. *His remark at the time was "What am I supposed to do? Take it home and fry it in butter?!?"
Australia, eh? No idea. Now, had they been off the African cape, I'd hypothesize it was abandoned to avoid a eon-long cruise courtesy of the Flying Dutchman.
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