[Steve Rust]

I will add to my earlier post. My suspicion that this is a Cross design is in no way a slap at those designs. If what I suspect happened it really does not matter what it was. I am just trying to get at every clue I can. I suspect this boat hit something at speed tearing off the forward section of the port ama and this pitchpoled the boat. It may be possible that somehow the ama was holed or flooded in some other way and this led to a capsize but it does not explain the apparent damage. You would think one would notice this problem and reduce sail or stop the boat before it reached a crisis. A less likely reason may be that the boat was poorly built/maintained and broke up in rough conditions.

The news report seems a little muddled with talk about the boat sinking before supplies could be retrieved. This does not suprise me when I think back at some news accounts I read about the incident that involved TaoJones and the animal rescue. One report described a monohull motorsailor along with a picture so that seemed believable. The other account I read described it as a catamaran with a mast problem.

I guess the only way to get the real truth is straight from the owner.