A yacht missing off the New Zealand coast for more than two weeks was sighted by an air force plane on Sunday, but the fate of the South African solo sailor remained unclear.
Paul Janse van Rensburg, 40, an experienced yachtsman, has not been seen since he sailed from the port of Tauranga on March 12 in his 11-metre steel-hulled yacht Tafadzwa for Gisborne.
A fishing boat reached the area where the yacht was seen drifting about 110 kilometres off New Zealand’s Chatham Islands after dark, but heavy seas made it too dangerous to attempt to board it and there was no response to calls on a loudhailer.
New Zealand’s Rescue Co-ordination Centre said the boat would stand by overnight and try to board the yacht at daylight.
An air force maritime surveillance aircraft on a training flight spotted the yacht on Sunday, more than a week after the search had been called off. Four search planes found no trace of the yacht after covering 328 000 square kilometres of ocean in three days.
The crew could not tell if van Rensburg was on board and reported the yacht’s main sail and jib were up but were extensively damaged, officials said.
The Chatham Islands are in the South Pacific about 700 kilometres south-east of New Zealand’s capital, Wellington. — Sapa