I'm not even sure I should post this message, but here goes:
The excitement of welcoming my new yacht and lifestyle has been building and building since the yacht left Hout Bay, South
Africa about two weeks ago, and the ETA for Seychelles was the 25th November.
The
skipper was contacting daily with reports of how the yacht (Kinda Magic) was performing, and just general life on board......he seems like a great guy and I considered myself lucky that I found the right skipper to deliver the yacht to Seychelles.
About a week ago he reported that they had a severe storm with waves as high as 14 meters, but that the yacht handled the storm well. A few days later he reported that there seemed to be a problem with the
propeller, but he dove down when the
weather calmed and fixed the problem (I never found out exactly what it was)
Yesterday afternoon a received a call from him on his satphone informing me that he had
lost steering but that he had found a workaround but would have to stop in Mayotte to have it fixed. He did not sound stressed and assured me that all the crew were also doing fine and that nobody was stressed or concerned
This morning I received a message that the
EPIRB was set off during the early hours of the morning. I tried contacting the Yacht on the skippers satphone and also e-mailed, but no response. After many attempts I finally got hold of the
rescue services who informed me that they had responded to the
EPIRB (Don't know if it was a boat or plane), and that a
liferaft was spotted, but there was no sign of the yacht.
I informed them that there were four people on board. A few hours later, the
rescue services confirmed that the yacht had sunk and that the crew of four had been rescued from the
liferaft by a cargo vessel and is on it's way to the Comores
At this stage nobody knows what happened, but at least the crew is safe. From the impression the skipper had made on me over the last two weeks and before the sailing, I believe that he was absolutely the right person for the job and something must just have gone terribly wrong.
Also, it is good to know that even halfway between Mozambique and
Madagascar, it took the rescue services less than twelve hours to rescue the crew. A big thank you to them whoever they are (And I'll make sure I find out and thank them personally)
Regards
Neville
and bought a beautiful (To me at least) Lavranos 40 mono-hull sail 
. If you have any words of wisdom, please let me have them
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