Yachtsmen 'died in freak accident'

[ilenart]

The coroner's 25 page report is available on the link below.

http://www.courts.qld.gov.au/BattenT...ad20080808.pdf

And it still doesn't explain why the fenders were deployed.

The coroner's report highlighted that from the film in the video camera (taken the morning when the vessel is underway and shows one of the brothers is fishing) you can see fenders hanging over both sides of the vessel. This indicates they forgot to bring them onboard when they left Abel Pt marina.

The report also highlighted how little experience the skipper and crew had in offshore sailing. My opinion is this played a big part in what happened.

Ilenart

[bstreep]

Reminds me of a story in CW a couple of years ago. Long story short: 2 brothers with no sailing experience left S. Cal for Hawaii. Made it. Bought a new handheld GPS - floating model. Sometime afterwards, they were sailing, had an unexpected gybe. GPS fell off cabin top, over the side. One brother dove for it - and thought as he hit the water, was THAT my brother diving over the side too? Luckily, they were near an island, swam to shore. Boat ended up on a reef miles away, and they got it back.

[Boomp]

Its certainly human nature to get perplexed when we 'can't' have answers. Its human nature too to Monday morning quarterback any given situation. The families don't have many options but to accept the official explanation. Sadly, like the mentioned Mary Celeste, the truth will never be known. But I must say the explanation they gave, given the evidence, is very logical, and is likely pretty close to the actual truth.

[Steve Pope]

D.o.J. All kiwi's are feral, they cant fly or swim and have very poor eyesight.

[sctpc]

Originally Posted by Steve Pope

D.o.J. All kiwi's are feral, they cant fly or swim and have very poor eyesight.

I know its true Ever watched there tv cop or customs shows but we dont whant to upset them, They may do a scarry dance

[Wotname]

I have been reviewing my previous posts to this thread and have come to the view that some of them are inappropriate to this thread. While I stand by the actual content of what I have previously posted, I now see that this was NOT the appropriate thread to post them to.

Let me be perfectly clear: I did not intent to suggest that foul play caused the disappearance of these men; however I can see that I worded my first post rather badly leading to the possible view that I thought they had been involved in foul play.
I apologise for misleading anyone.
I did say the coroner’s finding are “convenient” and by that I mean, the scenario described in the report leading to the three men being in the water is, in my view, too simplistic; however it is more convenient then saying “we don’t know” thus leading to further speculation, (especially by the press, again in my opinion). I note some others have expressed a similar view.

My comments about the unusual and unsavory events (often unpublished) occurring on this coast was intended to be a generalization rather than specific to this incident and a possible explanation of events of this nature. I really should not have posted them together or even in this thread. I then expanded on them when others commented on them which is really a bad case of thread drift so again I apologize for the thread drift.

Given the nature of my assertions, I will not expand further on them except to reiterate that they are observations from personal experience and you can make what you want of them but they should not be construed as being applicable to the KAZ II.

[sailorboy1]

I don't know what really happened, but I'll take the report of the guys downing as the moral of the story. Even if this is wrong the moral is to respect the sea and wear your protective gear.