"L'Actuel" Found Adrift - 2 Crew Missing

[GordMay]

French yacht found adrift off the Azores with no sign of its two-man crew

A French yacht that had two people on board has been found empty and floating in the middle of the Atlantic. The drifting boat, named L'Actuel, was upright, the mainsail still on the mast. The headsail was torn and partly furled. Lines trailed in the water. There was no one aboard, and the satellite phone and survival gear had been left behind.

The discovery of the empty yacht on Sunday, hundreds of miles from the nearest landfall, deepened the mystery about the fate of its crew, two French sailing enthusiasts.

"There was no signs of anybody on board. Anything could have happened," said Jeri Grychowski, a spokeswoman for the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Halifax. Search operations will continue, said a duty officer at the Gris-Nez Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre in France. The skipper, a veteran regatta racer named Gaetan de la Goublaye, 62, had set off from the French Caribbean island of Martinique with a friend, Denis Guilmin, 47. The two were on their way to Le Havre in Normandy.

Goto ➥ French yacht found adrift off the Azores with no sign of its two-man crew - The Globe and Mail

➥ Noonsite: YACHT SEARCH

[Free Lancer]

wow, i hope there safe

[maxingout]

It looks like they had been rolled from the distribution of articles inside the yacht. If you have two people on deck without harnesses in a storm, a rogue wave and a severe knockdown or roll will sweep the decks clean of people. Everyone is instantly over the side.