Mystery Yacht Wreckage Found off Northern Australia

Australian police are investigating the discovery of a capsized yacht in the Timor Sea about 170km off Darwin.

The yacht was found by an Australia Bay Seafoods fishing vessel after it pulled up the yacht’s mast and sail in its nets last week.

The company’s co-owner, Bill Passey, told the ABC that it took them about six hours to free themselves from the wreckage. A mollusc expert has told police he believed the vessel had been in the ocean for between eight and ten months and that the sail matched a type made by a boutique sailmaker from Sydney. The stainless steel rings on the blue mast were made in Auckland.

So far the fate of the crew, if there was one, is a mystery.

It is understood that the Northern Territory Water Police are preparing to send divers and a remotely operated vehicle to search the seabed for bodies and recover the rest of the yacht. Police are investigating the possibility that the yacht drifted to its current location from Indonesia as Australian records have not revealed any clues so far.