missing yacht australia

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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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.

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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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The Final Voyage Of The Patanela, The Aussie Boat Which Vanished Without A Trace

Josephine Rozenberg-Clarke

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.

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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.

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The Unexplained Disappearance Of The Patanela

It's believed that for at least 50,000 years people have traveled the oceans, even though the oldest known archaeological evidence of seafaring only dates back to about 8,000 BC, according to Ancient Port Antiques . In those tens of thousands of years, untold numbers of vessels, and the crews on them, have simply disappeared, most likely sunk to the bottom of the sea, destined to spend eternity in their watery graves.

You would think that with modern standards of ship-making, and with modern navigation and weather-monitoring methods, as well as ready communication with other humans on the ground, wholesale disappearances of ships and their crew would be rare. And while they are indeed rare, as recently as 1988, according to MySailing , a vessel seemingly disappeared off the face of the Earth. The Patanela, a 63-foot schooner, departed Western Australia and was never heard from again.

Deepening the mystery of the Australian vessel is the fact that, two decades after her disappearance, according to Sail-World , a beachcomber found a message in a bottle, written by a member of the ship's crew. However, the message appears to have been not a plea for rescue, but a mundane account of the voyage and an invitation to call a phone number to claim a prize.

The Patanela and Her Crew

The Patanela was, according to Sail-World , one of the most advanced ships on the ocean in its day. Owned by a wealthy businessman named Alan Nicol, according to MySailing , over the course of 30 years, the vessel had completed several voyages, both treacherous and mundane, which included sailing the rough waters around Antarctica as well as circumnavigating the globe. The ship was equipped with all of the latest safety, communication, and navigation equipment, and was considered "unsinkable" by those who had traveled on it.

On its final voyage, according to Sydney Morning Herald , its passengers consisted of two crewmen named Michael Calvin and John Blissett, a Perth couple named Ken and Noreen Jones. Their daughter. Ronnallee, was also on board for part of the voyage, according to My Sailing . On this particular voyage, according to ABC News Australia , Ken Jones was the skipper. How and why Calvin and Blissett were on board is unclear; the author of a book published after the disappearance, "The Patanela is Missing," by Robert Reid, the two had discussed stealing a vessel and might have "talked their way onto" the craft. The four of them were never heard from again.

The Patanela's Final Voyage

The Patanela departed from Fremantle, Western Australia (per My Sailing ), on October 16, 1988, according to Sydney Morning Herald , with a view towards making a leisurely sail to Airlie Beach, where another crew was to take over the ship. At some point before the voyage, Calvin wrote a message to his twin sister, Sue, detailing his plans for what was to happen when the voyage ended. 

"Myself and John will then drive, fly or bus back to Taree for [Christmas], maybe two weeks then make our way back to start up a charter business onboard." Perhaps eerily, he also added, "We have just made a message in a bottle for a free holiday onboard the Patanela."

At some point during the voyage, the ship stopped at Port Eyre, and Ronnalle departed, for reasons that remain unclear. The boat continued its voyage, "seemingly with no issues," as My Sailing notes, until November 8. That would be the last communication from the ship before it disappeared.

No Signs Of Distress

At some point on or around November 1, 1988, according to My Sailing , Ken Jones made the first of what would be the Patanela's final three calls to shore. Likely near Port Botany in Sydney, Jones radioed into Sydney Overseas Telecommunications Commission. "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 Harbor." The man on the other end of the line, Keith McLennan, would later say that the call was routine and that Jones didn't seem distressed.

In a second call, Jones asked for directions to Moruya, which was out of the way from the direction the ship was heading. The third and final call was equally mysterious: it was mostly static, but what could be heard was something like, "Three hundred kilometers south? Is it? South ..." The vessel was never heard from again, save for a buoy, found a year later, marked "Patanela, Fremantle."

A Messge In A Bottle

Sometime in 2008, according to Sydney Morning Herald , Sheryl Waideman, her husband, Gary, and her brother Doug, were beachcombing on a remote beach near Eucla when Sheryl found a bottle with a message in it. This shocked her, as the beach is so remote that she anticipated little to no human activity that day.

Once the bottle was pried open, they found a message. As Sail World reports, John Blissett had written it on October 23, 1988, and tossed it into the sea. "Hi there — out here in the lonely Southern Ocean and thought we would give away a free holiday in the Whitsunday Islands in north Queensland , Australia. Our ship is traveling from Fremantle, Western Aust, to Queensland to work as a charter vessel." The note also included two phone numbers to call to claim a weeklong sailing holiday as a prize.

Sheryl called the numbers out of curiosity, according to Sydney Morning Herald , and perhaps unsurprisingly, got no answer. "It was only after we searched on the internet that we realized what had happened," she said.

What Happened to The Patanela?

In 1992, according to Sail-World , the Australian government looked into the disappearance of the Patanela and concluded that the vessel foundered early in the morning of November 8, 1988, not long after its last radio contact. The inquiry did not offer up any explanation as to how or why.

Over the decades, various conspiracy theories have popped up. One suggests that a shipping container -– significantly larger than the Patanela –- ran over the smaller ship, although there was little freight traffic in the part of the ocean where the ship was believed to have disappeared. Claims of piracy and drug running have also popped up over the years, but there's no evidence to support or disprove those claims.

In his book, "The Patanela Is Missing," by Robert Reid, excerpted via ABC News Australia , the author posits that Calvin and Blissett had spoken about plans to hijack the vessel and sail it about "a la Erroll Flynn ," as Reid describes it. "They were engaged in those conversations, turn up across the country, talk their way on board a vessel, that vessel goes missing in very mysterious circumstances. Those are the facts ...," he wrote.

• Australia News

'I am alive, love you': Elliot Foote sends emotional text to father as it's confirmed all four missing Australian surfers are safe

The last of four missing Australian surfers who disappeared off the coast of Indonesia has been found after two nights at sea, with the 29-year-old sending his father an emotional message to confirm the news. 

Four Australian surfers who went missing off the coast of Indonesia have been found alive.

Elliot Foote and his girlfriend Steph Weisse, and friends Will Teagle and Jordan Short travelled to the Asian country for Mr Foote's 30th birthday celebration.

The group went missing on Sunday night after a boat they were travelling on failed to reach their destination.

The longboat is believed to have hit bad weather in its journey from Nias Island, off the west coast of Sumatra, to an exclusive surfing resort on the private Pinang Island in Aceh.

Mr Foote's father Peter spoke to the media about 12.30pm on Tuesday confirming three of the four surfers had been found, but the search was still underway for his son. 

Moments later, Mr Foote received a text message from his missing son.

“Hey Dad, Elliot here. I am alive, safe now, love you. Chat later,” Elliot texted his father.

Mr Foote has since confirmed his son's friends on the island were informed by a yacht owner that Elliot had been found. 

He revealed Elliot was on a boat being transported to Penang Island where the others in the group await him. 

"He'll hook up with his mates and hopefully grab a phone that works and give me a call from there," Mr Foote told Sky News Australia. 

"They'll be calling off the search now and Elliot will be on his way back to the island, they'll all regroup and get healthy and probably have a great night tonight."

Mr Foote said the catamaran yacht belonged to an Australian expat who had been scouring the waters in the area with a group of locals since the surfers first went missing and he ultimately helped find all four.  

It is understood Elliot had paddled away to an island on his surf board to find help after the group encountered rough weather, while the other two men were found floating in the ocean. 

Elliot is believed to have spent "two full nights and a whole day" in the water before branching away from the group for assistance. 

It was first confirmed on Tuesday morning that Steph had been found "safe on a boat".

Mr Foote earlier described the ongoing updates as a "blur".

"First we got - actually Steph's father, Wayne, rang me, he was beside himself. He was crying and he said 'they found Steph' and I was like that is awesome and I was like 'who else?' And he said 'they just have Steph at the moment' but they are in the right area," he said.

Steph's close friend Ellie confirmed on Instagram she had been found. 

“She (Steph) is safe on a boat,” the post reads.

“She said her partner Elliot paddled off to find help on his surf board.

“Thank you for all your love and support.”

Twelve friends had been travelling in two wooden speedboats to their resort when they encountered difficult weather conditions about 150km west off the island. 

The boat carrying the four people kept going towards its destination while its accompanying vessel took shelter on Sarang Alu - an island about 30 minutes from Pinang.

Elliot had shared a post on Instagram celebrating his return to the tropical country after “so many years”.

“Sharing waves with mates and the queen,” he wrote.

“Starting the trip off with hiking in the North Sumatran jungle and seeing orangutans was an amazing experience and something that I look forward to doing again for a longer time and going deeper.”

Incredible news out of Indonesia - with these four Aussies from NSW found after being lost at sea. A huge thank you to all those who were part of this days-long search. This would've been such a tough time for Elliot, Steph, Will and Jordan, as well as their families. pic.twitter.com/veDsq5860N — Chris Minns (@ChrisMinnsMP) August 15, 2023

New South Wales Premier Chris Minns expressed his relief upon hearing the news the quartet were safe, saying Australians "can't wait to welcome" the four back home. 

"Incredible news out of Indonesia - with these four Aussies from NSW found after being lost at sea," he wrote. 

"A huge thank you to all those who were part of this days-long search.

"This would've been such a tough time for Elliot, Steph, Will and Jordan, as well as their families."

Skynews.com.au has contacted the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for a statement. 

Xavier Doerr, 22, rescued from 'horrendous conditions' in Great Australian Bight

Topic: Weather

Xavier Doerr activated his sailboat's emergency beacon on Friday afternoon. ( ABC Gold Coast: Tom Forbes )

A young Queensland sailor trying to break several records for circumnavigating Australia has been winched to safety after his small sailboat struck rough weather in the Great Australian Bight on Friday.

Key points:

• Xavier Doerr activated his emergency beacon at 4:20pm on Friday after he was injured and his boat damaged in a storm
• His shore manager said he was "a very accomplished ocean man" but was "at the end of what a human can cope with"
• The 22-year-old had been hoping to break three records with his solo circumnavigation of Australia in a 6.5-metre sailboat

Despite 100kph winds and swells of up to six metres, the bulk carrier Theodore JR was able to pluck Xavier Doerr, 22, from his stricken vessel on Saturday afternoon, about 630 kilometres west of Kangaroo Island.

It followed a major search and rescue effort coordinated by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) involving the bulk carrier, two AMSA rescue planes and an RAAF aircraft.

Mr Doerr activated his emergency beacon at 4:20pm ACST on Friday after he was injured and his boat was damaged in a storm.

His shore team manager, Lee Randall, said the AMSA had "located him fairly easily" after the beacon was activated, and maintained a watch on him overnight.

Speaking before the rescue on Saturday, Mr Randall said Mr Doerr was "completely wrung out" mentally after asking to be removed from his boat.

"Xavier's decision, Xavier's call — I don't think any of us can really even think about what he's going through right now," he said.

"Conditions are absolutely horrendous … we're talking 40 knots minimum, we're talking eight-metre seas and also, unfortunately, that's also the thing that's undermining the rescue attempt.

"Physically he has sustained some injuries and the boat is taking on some water."

"He's absolutely at the end of what a human can cope with," he added.

Lee Randall, Xavier Doerr's shore team manager. ( ABC News )

Mr Randall said his team had lost communication with Mr Doerr at about 3pm on Friday, two hours before they were notified that he'd activated his beacon.

He said the sailor was "a very accomplished ocean man".

The Theodore JR made several unsuccessful rescue attempts before succeeding in bringing Mr Doerr aboard, the AMSA said.

Record attempt cut short

Mr Doerr had embarked on a solo circumnavigation of Australia in his six-and-a-half metre sailboat hoping to break three records.

According to his website, he departed Southport Yacht Club on the Gold Coast in May, aiming to be the fastest, youngest sailor to circumnavigate Australia on the smallest boat, and  hoping to complete the journey in under 50 days.

Early last month, the sailor reportedly encountered a severe weather system off the Western Australian coastline that significantly damaged his yacht and forced him to dock for repairs, dashing hopes of breaking the record for the fastest unassisted non-stop lap of the country.

Xavier Doerr with his boat, which was significantly damaged off the WA coast last month. ( Supplied: Facebook )

After weeks of extensive repairs to his boat, Mr Doerr set off again at the end of June, hoping to become the youngest solo sailor to circumnavigate Australia in the smallest boat.

On Monday, he posted a video on his Facebook page describing the weather conditions at the time as "very, very fruity".

"Loving it though, I am still tracking really well … it is hectic out here," he said.

Xavier Doerr had set out to break several records circumnavigating Australia. ( Supplied: Facebook )

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U.S. sailor Abby Sunderland's yacht found 8 years after ill-fated round-the-world bid

January 3, 2019 / 9:12 AM EST / AP

Canberra, Australia -- Californian solo sailor Abby Sunderland said on Thursday her "heart skipped a beat" with news that the yacht she abandoned in the remote Indian Ocean in 2010 during and ill-fated round-the-world attempt had been found off the Australian coast. South Australia Police confirmed on Wednesday that a barnacle-encrusted, upturned 40-foot hull found drifting 12 miles south of Kangaroo Island on Monday was Sunderland's sloop Wild Eyes.

Sunderland was 16 and attempting to become the youngest person to sail around the world alone and unassisted when her yacht capsized and lost its mast in mountainous seas between Africa and Australia on June 10, 2010. She was rescued two days later by a French trawler 2,000 miles west of Australia.

The now 25-year-old described seeing reports of the boat's discovery as "very emotional."

"It brought back memories - good and not so good - but it was neat to see it after so long," Sunderland said in a statement.

"It looked a little creepy, that's to be expected after so long," she added.

She said she wondered whether video equipment which she used to record her voyage was still inside and hoped that the boat would be retrieved.

Asked if the boat, a potential navigational hazard, would be retrieved, a police spokesman, who spoke on the department's customary condition of anonymity, said the boat had disappeared by Thursday and might have sunk.

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Missing Yachts- One Found, One Search Called Off

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Billionaire tech tycoon Mike Lynch among six missing as superyacht sinks

The captain of the Bayesian superyacht which sank off the coast of Sicily with billionaire owner Mike Lynch on board has broken his silence.

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The captain of the Bayesian superyacht has broken his silence after the vessel sank off the coast of Sicily.

The luxury yacht was hit by a tornado yesterday off the coast of Sicily at about 5am local time.

Six people are missing including the boat’s owner, billionaire tech tycoon Mike Lynch , 59, and his daughter, Hannah, 18.

It is feared some people became trapped in their cabins.

Captain speaks out

The $27 million Bayesian sank when its vast mast collapsed and the vessel capsized.

The ship’s captain James Calfield, 51, spoke from hospital yesterday and said had no idea the tornado was coming towards the ship.

“We didn’t see it coming,” he told La Repubblica.

Some 22 horrified passengers, made up of passengers and staff, screamed in fear as the boat flipped over.

Fifteen people were rescued, six are missing and one has already been found dead – understood to be the yacht’s cook.

A source close to the recovery operation also told AFP divers who recovered the first body had seen one of the missing six trapped inside the sunken vessel.

Specialist cave divers and their equipment were flown to Sicily to access the confined spaces of the wreck.

Legal battle

The passengers on board were celebrating Mr Lynch’s recent acquittal in a fraud trial, according to British newspaper The Telegraph .

The billionaire entrepreneur sold his tech firm Autonomy to US computing giant Hewlett-Packard for $US11 billion ($16b) in 2011, but a lengthy legal battle followed as he was accused of inflating the value of the company.

A San Francisco jury acquitted Mr Lynch, who has been dubbed “Britain’s Bill Gates”, in June.

The guests on the doomed superyacht included staff from the legal firm Clifford Chance and Mr Lynch’s company Invoke Capital, the newspaper reported.

Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer, 70, is also among the missing people, according to British newspaper The Times.

Double tragedy as co-defendant dies in England

Eerily, Mr Lynch’s co-defendant in the fraud trial, Stephen Chamberlain, died after being hit by a car over the weekend. He had also been acquitted of all charges in June.

Mr Chamberlain was hit by a car on Saturday, local time, in Cambridgeshire and taken to hospital where he later died.

He was Autonomy’s vice president of finance before he left the company in 2012.

A source told The Telegraph : “Our dear client and friend Steve Chamberlain was fatally struck by a car on Saturday while out running.

“He was a courageous man with unparalleled integrity, and we deeply miss him. He fought successfully to clear his good name, which lives on through his wonderful family.”

The Sun understands he was taken off life support on Sunday, just hours before the yacht sank.

Mr Lynch told British newspaper The Times in July that he himself had “various medical things that would have made it difficult to survive” in an American prison.

“It’s bizarre, but now you have a second life. The question is, what do you want to do with it?” he said, speaking about the verdict.

Despite the acquittal, the fraud case is not closed, international news agency AFP reports.

In 2022, London’s High Court ruled in a civil fraud case that HP had been duped and had overpaid for Autonomy.

The court has yet to rule on the billions of dollars in damages claimed by the American group.

Also sued by HP, Autonomy’s former chief financial officer Sushovan Hussain was found guilty of fraud in 2018 by a US jury, with Hussain jailed for five years.

Luxury superyacht sinks

The 56-metre-long, $320,000-a-week vessel was struck by a sudden storm while moored off the coast of Porticello, east of Palermo.

Mr Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, is among 15 people who have been rescued.

Three other Brits, two Americans, and one Canadian are among the remaining six missing.

An expert team of divers have already been able to locate the vessel 48 metres below the water on the seabed.

Almost all of the 22 passengers and crew on-board are said to have been inside their cabins and rooms when the weather took a turn.

A one-year-old British girl was rescued by her mum in the sea after the boat sank, before they were rushed to hospital.

Her mother Charlotte Golunski spoke about the frantic rescue, telling Giornale di Sicilia : “For two seconds I lost the baby in the sea, then I immediately hugged her again amid the fury of the waves.

“I held her tightly, close to me, while the sea was stormy. Many were screaming.

“Luckily the lifeboat inflated and 11 of us managed to get on board.”

The father was also on-board at the time of the horror ordeal.

Ms Golunski managed to swim over to one of the rafts where she and her daughter were taken to safety along with 11 others.

Camper & Nicholsons, the managers of the yacht, said in a statement that they were “assisting with the ongoing search” for the missing people.

“The boat was all lit up. Around 4:30am, it was no longer there,” said one witness cited by ANSA.

“A beautiful boat where there was a party. A normal joyous vacation day at sea turned into tragedy”.

Karsten Borner, the captain of another yacht anchored nearby at the time of the storm, said there was a “very strong hurricane gust” and he had to battle to keep his vessel steady.

All of a sudden “we noticed that the ship behind us was gone”, he told journalists in Porticello.

“We found this life raft … with a little baby, and the wife of the owner,” he said.

Fisherman Fabio Cefalu said he and other fishermen rushed to help after seeing a distress flare go up.

“But we didn’t find anyone in the sea, we only found cushions and the remains of the boat,” he told AFP.

Tech billionaire among those feared dead

Originally from Suffolk in east England, Mr Lynch was a former adviser to two British prime ministers and once a star entrepreneur who seemed to represent a rare tech British success story.

The businessman has a fortune of £500 million ($965 million) according to the latest Sunday Times “Rich List”, and owes his fame to his software firm Autonomy which he sold to Hewlett-Packard for $US11 billion ($16 billion) in 2011.

He founded the company in 1996 in Cambridge, where he earned his doctorate, and turned it into a leading British tech firm.

But just one year after the mega-deal, HP reported a writedown of $US8.8 billion ($13 billion) – including more than $US5 billion ($7.4 billion) it attributed to inflated data from Autonomy – plunging Mr Lynch into a decade-long fraud scandal.

Prosecutors accused him of taking part in a massive scheme as Autonomy’s chief executive to deceive HP by pumping up his company’s value before its sale.

Mr Lynch was extradited from Britain to the US in 2023 to stand trial, facing two decades in jail if convicted of the 17 charges and spending the year in house arrest.

But in June he was acquitted on all charges.

“I am looking forward to returning to the UK and getting back to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field,” Mr Lynch said after the verdict was handed down in a San Francisco court.

Mr Lynch – who made around $US 815 million ($1.2 billion) from the Autonomy sale – always denied the fraud charges, accusing HP of making him a scapegoat for its own failings.

After returning to the UK, Lynch told The Times newspaper in July he had “various medical things that would have made it difficult to survive” in an American prison.

“It’s bizarre, but now you have a second life. The question is, what do you want to do with it?.” he told the publication after his acquittal.

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Father of two daughters aged 18 and 21, and a dog lover – owning two dachshunds and four sheepdogs – Mr Lynch has a home in the affluent London district of Chelsea, according to the newspaper, as well as owning a farm in Suffolk.

A spokeswoman for Mr Lynch declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

— with AFP

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Who was on superyacht that sank off Sicily?

Twenty-two people were on board the Bayesian superyacht including British technology tycoon Mike Lynch, his wife and 18-year-old daughter, and Morgan Stanley International boss Jonathan Bloomer.

Friday 23 August 2024 12:34, UK

Details have emerged of the 22 people who were on board the superyacht that sank off the coast of Sicily.

The British-flagged vessel named Bayesian was carrying 12 passengers and 10 members of crew when it got into difficulty in the early hours of Monday.

Seven bodies have now been recovered. The other 15 people on board were rescued.

Here's what we know about those who were on the yacht.

Follow latest updates on the superyacht sinking

British technology tycoon Mike Lynch was among the original six people missing. On Thursday, divers confirmed his body had been recovered.

Raised in Ilford, east London by Irish parents, the 59-year-old made millions with the software company Autonomy he set up in 1996.

He had an estimated net worth of £852m, according to the 2023 Sunday Times Rich List, and is believed to have owned the yacht.

Off the back of Automomy's global success, Mr Lynch was given the roles of science adviser to former prime minister David Cameron and non-executive director of the BBC.

The Cambridge maths and sciences graduate sold the firm for £8.64bn to US giant Hewlett Packard (HP) in 2011.

Dubbed the "British Bill Gates", Mr Lynch has been in the headlines in recent months over a high-profile fraud case related to the sale of Autonomy to HP in 2011.

HP accused him of deliberately overstating the value of the company before it was acquired by the American technology firm. Mr Lynch denied any wrongdoing.

In June, a US jury cleared him of all charges .

Read more: Lynch's co-defendant dies days before yacht disaster

Hannah Lynch

Mr Lynch's 18-year-old daughter Hannah Lynch was also on board. A body believed to be that of the teenager was recovered on Friday from the yacht wreckage.

She had been on holiday with her parents, having secured a place to study English at the University of Oxford, according to reports.

Her former school, Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith, west London, said they were "incredibly shocked by the news that Hannah and her father are among those missing in this tragic accident" when the yacht first sank.

Angela Bacares

Mr Lynch's wife Angela Bacares was on board the yacht and was rescued.

The 57-year-old said she and Mr Lynch were awoken by the boat "tilting" at 4am - half an hour before it sank.

Jonathan Bloomer

Jonathan Bloomer, the chairman of investment bank Morgan Stanley International, was confirmed dead on Thursday.

According to the Financial Times, Mr Bloomer appeared as a defence witness for Mr Lynch during his US criminal trial and the pair were good friends. He also chaired Autonomy's audit committee.

The 70-year-old was the chief executive of UK-Hong Kong insurer Prudential until he was ousted by the board in 2005.

He was also chairman of the insurance provider Hiscox.

Judy Bloomer

Mr Bloomer's wife Judy was on the yacht trip with her husband. Divers confirmed they found her body on Thursday.

Mrs Bloomer was a former board member at The Eve Appeal charity, which focuses on gynaecological cancers.

The charity described her as a "brilliant champion for women's health and medical research... an incredible supporter, committee member, and trustee of our charity for over 20 years".

Read more: 'Alarming' potential cause of superyacht disaster What we know about superyacht that sank

Recaldo Thomas

The yacht's on-board chef Recaldo Thomas died in the sinking.

He was Canadian-Antiguan and part of the crew of the Bayesian.

His body was the first to be recovered from the wreckage.

Chris Morvillo

US lawyer Chris Morvillo was among those divers found dead on Thursday.

The father-of-two worked on Mr Lynch's US fraud trial and was a partner of law firm Clifford Chance's US branch.

Mr Morvillo was assistant attorney for the Southern District of New York between 1995 and 2005 and worked on the terrorist investigation into the 9/11 attacks.

In a recent LinkedIn post, he thanked the legal team that helped win Mr Lynch's trial.

Signing off the post, he said: "And, finally, a huge thank you to my patient and incredible wife, Neda Morvillo, and my two strong, brilliant, and beautiful daughters, Sabrina Morvillo and Sophia Morvillo.

"None of this would have been possible without your love and support. I am so glad to be home. And they all lived happily ever after…."

Neda Morvillo

Mr Morvillo's wife Neda died in the disaster alongside her husband.

The 57-year-old had a luxury jewellery brand, which she ran under her maiden name Neda Nassiri.

Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News

Ayla Ronald

Ayla Ronald, a senior associate at Clifford Chance, survived the yacht disaster, the law firm confirmed.

The 36-year-old worked alongside Chris Morvillo in helping defend Mike Lynch in court.

Clifford Chance said in a statement: "Our utmost priority is providing support to the family as well as our colleague Ayla Ronald, who together with her partner, thankfully survived the incident."

She is originally from Christchurch, New Zealand, but lives in London, her father told local media there.

He said she was left "very shaken" but "she and her partner are alive".

Charlotte Golunski

Charlotte Golunski was on board the yacht and was rescued along with her one-year-old daughter, Sofia.

She spoke to Italian newspaper La Repubblica, confirming she survived the yacht sinking and told how she kept her daughter alive after she was rescued.

"I held her afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched upwards to keep her from drowning," she said.

"It was all dark. In the water I couldn't keep my eyes open. I screamed for help but all I could hear around me was the screams of others."

The 35-year-old is a partner at one of Mr Lynch's firms - Invoke Capital - and has worked there since 2012, according to her LinkedIn profile.

She also worked at Hewlett Packard, which acquired Autonomy in 2011, for 11 months.

Before that, she studied history at the University of Oxford.

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James Emsley

Ms Golunski's partner James Emsley was also rescued from the yacht, according to Sicily's civil protection agency.

The 36-year-old is the father of her one-year-old daughter.

James Cutfield

The 51-year-old captain of the yacht spoke to Italian newspaper La Repubblica after he was rescued.

Mr Cutfield, from New Zealand, was taken for treatment at the Termini Imerese emergency unit, where he told the newspaper: "We didn't see it coming."

Leah Randall

Leah Randall was part of the Bayesian crew and survived the sinking.

She was pictured going ashore in Porticello on Monday morning and is from South Africa.

Her mother Heidi told Sky News said she was "beyond relieved that my daughter's life was spared by the grace of God".

"It doesn't make it any easier living with the heartache of those who have lost their lives [or are] missing. My very deepest condolences to the chef's family as they formed a great friendship," she said.

Katja Chicken

Katja Chicken was another South African member of crew on board the Bayesian and was pictured being brought to safety in Porticello on Monday.

The Italian coastguard confirmed on Tuesday evening that Leo Eppel, a crew member, also survived the yacht sinking.

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