Ghost Ship: What happened to the Patanela?
The ship was the Patanela, a twin-masted, steel-hulled schooner on its way to North Queensland with four people on board. Not a trace of them has ever been found.
Under Investigation gathered a panel of some of this country's greatest maritime experts - retired Submarine Commander John Dikkenberg, world renowned yachtswoman and lawyer Adrienne Cahalan, author and investigator Robert Reid who spent years investigating the Patanela and former Victorian Search and Rescue commander Ian Veitch who has conducted dozens of searches at sea.
A coronial inquest determined the Patanela was the victim of a hit and run collision, probably with a much larger tanker and was forced to the bottom of the sea with all hands on board.
It's a finding UI's panel of experts doubt with alternate theories being debated including hijack, a murder-suicide or a different accident scenario which saw the crew in a life boat in worsening conditions who eventually drowned at sea.
And to add to the mystery a retired police officer broke a 30 year silence to detail the sighting of a ship he is certain was the Patanela.
WATCH THE FULL INVESTIGATION ON 9NOW HERE
Built to last
The Patanela was hand built in the mid 1950's in Tasmania, the first steel-hulled ship of its kind constructed there and one of the rarest vessels in the country.
It had a spectacular career ferrying scientific teams to the Antarctic, operating as a crayfishing vessel in some of the toughest and roughest seas, before being bought by a wealthy West Australian businessman who planned to use the boat as a tourist charter in North Queensland.
The vessel was equipped with the latest technology, colour radar and anti collision and completely refitted for its voyage from Fremantle to Airlie Beach.
"It was about as unsinkable as you could get with a steel vessel," Robert Reid told Ui.
"It was a robust, steel, 75-foot schooner and had proved to be a well-founded, seagoing large yacht," Submariner John Dikkenberg noted.
The delivery captain was Ken Jones who was joined by his wife Noreen for the trip. Two young deckhands from country New South Wales, John Blissett and Michael Calvin also signed on.
It was meant to be a routine journey but ended in doom and mystery.
On October 16, 1988 the Patanela set out from Fremantle bound for Queensland.
On board the four crew who were joined by Alan Nicol the owner and the skipper's daughter Ronnalee Jones. They would stay for part of the journey.
For most of the early part of the trip there was no indication anything was wrong.
Halfway across the Great Australian Bight the two young crew members penned a letter in a bottle inviting whoever found their message to join them for a holiday in Queensland. All seemed happy, ship shape.
"Out here in the lonely Southern Ocean and thought we would give away a free holiday in the Whitsunday Islands in north Queensland". The note read signed by John Blissett.
But about the same time skipper Ken Jones received a distressing call from his son in Perth. Jones' yacht The Fremantle Doctor had been repossessed and his business was facing massive financial problems.
This was the first hint of any trouble on this trip and immediately raised red flags for UI's panel of experts.
John Dikkenberg, alert to the moods of crew in submarines, noted:
"My entire reading of Ken Jones was that at the very least, he was under a lot of pressure."
Dikkenberg also noted Jones, an experienced deep water sailor and yachtsman, had spent vast amounts of time motoring during his voyage, not using the schooner's sails.
He wondered if Jones' financial pressures have caused more emotional distress than anyone knew and eventually led to a break down and murder suicide on board.
"And this would explain to me why a really well-founded mariner, someone with thousands of sea miles, a good mariner in every respect, just went to sea in a very depressed state," he said.
As the Patanela approached Portland in Victoria only Ken Jones, his wife and the two crewmen were on board. Owner Alan Nicol had disembarked in Esperance, Ronnalee Jones in Port Lincoln, South Australia.
Then strangely upon arrival Jones rang the boat's owner requesting $500 for fuel which bizarrely he didn't purchase.
This raised concerns with UI's panel.
"That seems a bit strange that if he's motoring across the Great Australian Bight, if he's asked for money, it means that he wants the fuel. But it just adds to the mystery of why he didn't and he requested the money and been given the money," former Search and Rescue boss Ian Veitch told UI.
The Patanela, re-stocked with some supplies but no extra fuel continued on its voyage.
On November 7th the ship was seen motoring past a lighthouse in Jervis Bay, south of Sydney.
And in the early hours of the morning of November 8th the Patanela arrived off the coast of Botany Bay.
But there was a problem.
Radio Calls
At two and a half minutes to one, OTC (Overseas Telecommunication Commission), which managed all messages and radio calls from ships, received a message from skipper Ken Jones.
Recorded tapes reveal these messages:
KEN JONES: SYDNEY RADIO - SYDNEY RADIO SYDNEY RADIO THIS IS PATANELA PATANELA PATANELA ON CHANNEL 16 DO YOU READ?
OTC: PATANELA, SYDNEY GOOD MORNING LOUD AND CLEAR OVER.
KEN JONES: PATANELA - I BELIEVE WE'VE RUN OUT OF FUEL, WE'RE APPROXIMATELY 10 MILES EAST OF BOTANY BAY.
KEN JONES: WE'VE HOISTED OUR SAILS AND WE'RE TACKING OUT TO THE EAST - SO TRACKING ABOUT 080
Running out of fuel - having motored for the majority of the voyage - stunned the panel of experts, but also the words where Ken Jones claimed he "thought" he'd run out of fuel perplexed them.
"I would've thought that if you're going to run out of fuel, you keep sailing and you save whatever fuel you've got," John Dikkenberg told the panel.
"if he's running out of fuel, you would sail and save that fuel for when you did need it. And to say I think I've run out of fuel, you think he'd be experienced enough to know whether he has run out of fuel or not, " Ian Veitch added.
Veteran yachtswoman Adrienne Cahalan believed Jones may just have been distracted.
"So that he mightn't have been on his game and then not taking on the fuel. It might have been a risk that he took that he might have thought, "Oh well I'll get it in Eden." And then he got to Eden thought, "Oh no, I'll make it to Sydney, it'll be okay." And that gamble didn't pay off, "she said.
In that same message to OTC, Ken Jones also indicated he might need assistance entering Sydney Harbour the next morning - another call which intrigued our panel.
But if this first message was unusual, a second an hour later totally baffled UI's panel of experts.
KEN JONES: How far South is Moruya ?
We're unfamiliar with that position.
How far South is it in miles from us ?
"I have no explanation. I have no idea why you would make that first call to say I'm east of Botany Bay and then asking for directions to Moruya. He'd know where he is," John Dikkenberg said.
"That is very strange, that is probably the strangest thing of everything," Adrienne Cahalan added.
A third short message then static .
KEN: 300 KS SOUTH……IS IT SOUTH? …. STATIC
Then silence and the Patanela is never heard from again.
The unusual nature of the OTC radio calls led author and investigator Robert Reid to believe foul play was involved.
Reid, who investigated the disappearance for years, maintains to this day the Patanela was hijacked by a third party who boarded the vessel, or by the two young crewmen on board.
Coincidentally, John Blissett and Michael Calvin had worked on the Australian movie "Dead Calm" , a chilling story of a yacht being hijacked.
Robert Reid believed there were too many coincidences.
"When you look at the so-called coincidence that they'd been talking about that. Then Calvin turns up in Fremantle and talks his way onto the Patanela. Then Blisset turns up, two old mates, and he gets on board as well. So they turn up on Patanela and she goes missing."
John Blissett's mother Marj refuted that theory out of hand.
"They wouldn't. They were not like that. They knew what was right and what was wrong in life. This was not something they would do," she said.
And there was nothing in their actions leading up to the disappearance which indicated the boys intended piracy and hijack. Their carefree message in a bottle seems to show they were having a good time.
Sudden sink
A Coroner ruled the Patanela was the victim of a sudden sinking after a massive collision with another vessel, most likely a much larger tanker.
Dozens of ships were investigated, but only one, a 43,000 tonne bulk carrier, the Howard Smith, was anywhere near the Patanela at the time.
Howard Smith crew members told Federal Police they did not see the smaller vessel on radar nor heard a collision and there was no sign of any impact with another ship.
What mystified UI's panel of experts was the complete lack of any debris.
"With any search, you usually find some debris, something to indicate either an accident or something that's floated from the vessel when it sank. In this, there's just nothing," Ian Veitch noted.
Nothing was found until almost six months later when a life buoy, clearly marked as Patanela's was located off the coast of Terrigal north of Sydney.
Adrienne Cahalan, using weather and tidal data from that time, concluded any debris would have been washed out to sea. And with a search not being instigated for 11 days after the disappearance the likelihood of finding anything else was remote.
Australia's Ghost Ship, the Patanela was sighted dozens of times after that ill-fated night.
All were investigated and only one seemed credible.
Retired New South Wales police officer Ted McCarthy and his wife saw a vacht matching the Patanela in March 1989, months after the disappearance.
Armed with a magazine article with a picture of the Patanela, McCarthy compared the picture with the boat using his binoculars.
He remained convinced he was witnessing the missing schooner.
" I identified a number of points, things like it had square portholes, which was a bit unusual. It was blue, the colour was all exactly the same, the rigging was the same. The wheelhouse down the back of the boat was as, per the picture. And up the front on the bowsprit area, there was plaited rope which was quite noticeable and quite obvious, and it was on the Patanela," Ted McCarthy detailed to UI.
He radioed the vessel asking for identification and whoever was onboard denied the ship was the Patanela.
If it was, it hoisted anchor later that evening and disappeared for all time.
Conclusions
At least three of UI's panel of experts are convinced human intervention was behind the disappearance of the Patanela - whether hijack by persons unknown, by the crew members or the captain himself.
But Adrienne Cahalan holds a completely different view - that the ship was involved in an accident at sea and the crew were claimed in a lifeboat in worsening ocean conditions.
Regardless of their differences they all agree the Patanela mystery, Australia's most famous Ghost Ship, may never be solved.
Property News: Walk down the street to use the loo in this tiny Sydney rental.
The Schooner Patanela which disappeared off the Sydney coast.
The final voyage of the Patanela, the Aussie boat that vanished without a trace
Pedestrian TV . By Josephine Rozenberg-Clarke .
Exactly 30 years ago today, on October 16 1988, a 19-metre schooner called the Patanela set off on a month-long voyage from Fremantle, WA‘s busy port city, with an end destination of Airlie Beach, part of QLD‘s Whitsundays region. But the boat would never arrive, making it an unsolved mystery still baffling people to this day.
In the latest episode of PEDESTRIAN.TV‘s unsolved mystery podcast All Aussie Mystery Hour , we look at the Patanela ‘s mysterious final voyage.
The yacht was owned by wealthy businessman Alan Nicol, and the captain was a bloke named Ken Jones, who manned the ship alongside his wife Noreen and their daughter Ronnalee. They were joined by two crew members named Michael Calvin and John Blisset.
Alan alighted at Esperance because he had work commitments and Ronnalee got off the boat at Port Eyre. The boat and Ken, Noreen, Michael and John continued on, seemingly with no issues. Until around 1am on November 8, when Ken, apparently located off Port Botany in Sydney, radioed in to Sydney Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC) operator Keith McLennan the following message:
I believe we’ve run out of fuel…we’ve hoisted our sails and we’re tacking out to the east, tracking about zero-eight-zero…our intention is to tack out for a couple of hours, then tack back in. We may need some assistance in the morning to get back into Sydney Harbour.
Keith said than Ken didn’t sound distressed, and the call itself was fairly routine. The weather was overcast yet calm, and the Patanela was more than capable of navigating those kind of conditions.
There was a second call asking for directions to the south coast town of Moruya which was slightly odd as it was in the opposite direction to where they were headed. And in the third call, received at 2am, things got a bit weird. The line was all static, and Ken could be heard saying: “Three hundred kilometres south? Is it? South…”
There was no further communication from the Patanela and the yacht never made it to Airlie Beach. No trace of the boat or the crew has ever been seen again — aside from a buoy marked “Patanela, Fremantle” plucked from the waters off Terrigal, on NSW’s Central Coast, the following year.
There was also a message in a bottle found in 2007, almost 20 years after the boat disappeared. But for all those mysterious details, you’ll just have to listen to the episode. Subscribe on iTunes HERE , or on Spotify HERE . Or, you can just listen / download below.
Listen to the podcast at Pedestrian TV .
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Unraveling the Mystery of the Kaz II: The Vanishing Crew of a Ghost Ship
- Author: Admin
- November 12, 2023
Table of Contents
The discovery of the ghost ship, the investigation: clues and theories, coronial inquest and findings, the impact on maritime safety, the legacy of the kaz ii.
In April 2007, the Kaz II, a seemingly ordinary catamaran, set sail from Airlie Beach, Australia, manned by a three-person crew: skipper Derek Batten, and brothers Peter and James Tunstead. Their plan was a leisurely journey to Townsville and Cairns, but what unfolded turned the Kaz II into one of the most baffling maritime mysteries of the 21st century.
On April 20, 2007, the Kaz II was spotted adrift in the Coral Sea, near the Great Barrier Reef. The Coast Guard's approach revealed a scene that would perplex investigators: the yacht was in perfect condition with its engine still running. A laptop was found powered on, a table was set with food and utensils, and personal belongings were undisturbed. Strikingly, there was no sign of the crew.
The initial investigation ruled out foul play; there were no signs of a struggle or outside interference. The weather reports indicated mild conditions, and the boat was well-maintained, discounting a major accident. This led to various theories:
- Man Overboard Incident : One speculation is that one crew member fell overboard while trying to free a tangled fishing line or a sail. The others, attempting a rescue, might have also ended up in the water, leading to a tragic chain of events.
- The Rogue Wave Theory : Some suggest a sudden, powerful rogue wave could have swept the men overboard. However, the lack of disarray on the boat makes this unlikely.
- Murder-Suicide Pact or Foul Play : While the investigation didn't indicate foul play, some theorized a darker turn of events given the complete absence of bodies or distress signals.
- Planned Disappearance : Another theory posits that the men staged their disappearance, though their families strongly refuted this, citing their strong ties to home.
- Maritime Phenomenon or Pirate Activity : The Coral Sea, known for its unpredictable nature, may hold natural explanations, though none have been substantiated. Likewise, there was no evidence of piracy.
In 2008, a coronial inquest was held to determine the fate of the crew. The coroner, Michael Barnes, concluded that the men had likely fallen overboard in calm seas. He suggested that one crew member might have been trying to free a tangled line and accidentally fell overboard, with the others losing their lives in a failed rescue attempt. However, this conclusion, while plausible, remains unproven and speculative.
The Kaz II incident prompted discussions on maritime safety, particularly focusing on the importance of personal locator beacons and the risks of man-overboard situations. It highlighted the need for rigorous safety protocols, even in seemingly calm sea conditions.
The Kaz II has since become a symbol of the sea's unpredictability and the mysteries it harbors. Documentaries, books, and articles continue to analyze this incident, drawing parallels with other maritime mysteries like the Mary Celeste. The lack of definitive answers has left the door open to endless speculation and has cemented the Kaz II's place in the annals of nautical lore.
The Kaz II's story remains a haunting reminder of the sea's enigmatic nature. Despite modern technology and advanced maritime practices, the ocean still holds secrets and mysteries that sometimes defy explanation. The disappearance of the Kaz II's crew is a poignant testament to this, leaving a lingering question that may never be fully answered: what really happened aboard the Kaz II?
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Missing Yacht's Mysterious Last Words Still Puzzle Investigators 35 Years Later
The patanela was a 75-foot-long bright yellow yacht that somehow went missing in 1988..
In 1988 a famous sailing yacht went missing, leaving behind a strange final message, a mangled investigation and questions of suicide, piracy, mutiny and drug trafficking. I’ve long been fascinated by ship wrecks and disappearances and this one is one of my favorites, not only because it’s such a mysterious story, but because the ship itself was so beautiful.
Suggested Reading
The Patanela was a 75-foot-long, twin-masted, steel-hulled schooner built in Tasmania, according to Nine News . It lived an eventful life, traveling around the world as an explorer’s vessel and making headlines wherever it went. Eventually the schooner would be purchased by a businessman named in Perth named Alan Nicol, who had the intention of turning it into a charter vessel. First, Nicol, his daughter, his Skipper Ken Jones, Jones’ wife, and two crew members would take the Patanela around the southern coast of Australia to its new home at Airlie Beach in the Whitsunday Region of Queensland.
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On October 16, 1988 the Patanela set out from Freemantle, Western Australia on a month-long voyage with six souls aboard. By October 29, however, Nicol and his daughter left the boat, and the crew of four continued on to Sydney where they’d meet back up with Nicol and continue on to Airlie Beach.
From here, things get weird. Jones was an experienced sailor, yet spent the majority of the voyage using the diesel engines to motor along the Australian coast. First, it seems Jones was behaving erratically. He requested funds from Nicol for fuel, and then didn’t buy any fuel. On November 9, the ship arrived off the coast of Botany Bay. And that’s when the voyage takes a strange turn for the worse, according to Nine:
At two and a half minutes to one, OTC (Overseas Telecommunication Commission), which managed all messages and radio calls from ships, received a message from skipper Ken Jones. Recorded tapes reveal these messages: KEN JONES: SYDNEY RADIO - SYDNEY RADIO SYDNEY RADIO THIS IS PATANELA PATANELA PATANELA ON CHANNEL 16 DO YOU READ? OTC: PATANELA, SYDNEY GOOD MORNING LOUD AND CLEAR OVER. KEN JONES: PATANELA - I BELIEVE WE’VE RUN OUT OF FUEL, WE’RE APPROXIMATELY 10 MILES EAST OF BOTANY BAY. KEN JONES: WE’VE HOISTED OUR SAILS AND WE’RE TACKING OUT TO THE EAST - SO TRACKING ABOUT 080
As experts involved in a reinvestigation of the ship’s appearance point out, this is a very strange message, especially from an experienced seaman like Jones. For one, he wouldn’t say “I believe we’ve run out of fuel,” as he’d very much know what the indicators for that situation would be. And if he was so low on fuel, why were his sails hoisted? The next message is even stranger:
KEN JONES: How far South is Moruya ? We’re unfamiliar with that position. How far South is it in miles from us ? “I have no explanation. I have no idea why you would make that first call to say I’m east of Botany Bay and then asking for directions to Moruya. He’d know where he is,” John Dikkenberg said. “That is very strange, that is probably the strangest thing of everything,” Adrienne Cahalan added. A third short message then static . KEN: 300 KS SOUTH……IS IT SOUTH? …. STATIC
The ship is never heard from again. Nicol reports the Patanela missing 11 days later. A lackluster investigation revealed nothing, which almost seems as to have been by design. Eventually, investigators come up with the idea that the Patanela was hit by a larger cargo vessel and sank – without any of the ships in the harbor showing damage, without any wreckage of the yacht, without the automatic distress beacon being tripped, and despite the latest sonar equipment onboard with an experienced sailor at the helm keeping them far from danger.
There’s also the problem of the sightings: the Patanela was easily identifiable with its brilliant yellow hull, and it was spotted several times up and down the coast of Australia and even in the waters off of Thailand and Southeast Asia.
And then there’s the life buoy, which turned up six months later in Sydney with the letters Patanela written across it and marine life that seemed to indicate it came from the Coral Sea – about a thousand miles or more north from Sydney and the last known location of the Patanela.
There are a lot of possible theories on what happened to the Patanela, and every journalist or armchair investigator out there has their favorite. During the first leg of the journey, Jones was in an emotional state due to his own yacht being seized and his personal company was in distress. The fact that such an experienced sailor spent most of the journey under motor could indicate his state of mind. Nicol also suspected the previous owner of trying to reclaim the Patanela after he complained about being swindled in the deal to sell it to Nicol.
But it doesn’t explain the strange broadcast. Jones’ son told reporters that he believed it was a coded cry for help. It just so happens that the two young crew members aboard – John Blissett and Michael Calvin – had just finished work on the Australian film “Dead Calm,” which is a thriller about a yacht being hijacked.
Did life imitate art? Or did the danger Jones tried to warn the OTC of come in the form of more professional hijackers? After the ship’s disappearance, Nicol spent $30,000 of his own funds to investigate every sighting of the Patanela. The big yellow ship was a rare make and style, easily spotted from shore by even landlubbers. When seen the was Patanela always at a distance in open waters and rarely came to shore; when it did come to shore it was always spotted in way out of the way areas. These are signs, Nicol believed, that indicate the Patanela was being used for drug smuggling. And worse yet, certain members of the police may have been in on the caper, as the YouTube channel Barely Sociable explains:
Once Nicol reported the ship missing a search was refused on the basis that, after 11 days, the search area would be an impossible 200,000-square-kilometer area. Then a federal detective working with a judicial coroner declared the Patanela had been hit and sank that same day, just ten miles off the coast of Botany Bay, but no search was ever done to track down the wreck.
As Nicol noted in his investigation, police are often paid off by drug smugglers, and indeed, the coroner assigned to the case made previous questionable judgements in cases involving potential drug smuggling activities. Sightings of the Patanela near the Golden Triangle of heroin production in Southeast Asia could also point to the Patanela being hijacked and pressed into drug smuggling. If that’s the case the Patanela has long ago been modified and registered under a different name and flag by crooked politicians on the other side of the sea.
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