Bob Mott, who runs Charter Catamaran in Thailand has sent us photographs of a cruising catamaran that has been severely holed after a collision with an unchartered reef near Phuket.
Bob reports that the owner, Andre, is a French Canadian aged 76 who is in hospital with rib/kidney damage after the incident. Sadly, his 68-year-old wife Hazel is dying of cancer and is confined to a wheel chair. Hazel does the navigation and due to her condition she sleeps up top in the saloon. Andre does all the sailing side.
The boat’s name is Sans Tambour Ni Trompete which means Quiet Achiever – the literal translation from French to English is Without Fanfare.
Andre told Bob Mott that they left anchorage and were calibrating their repaired Coursemaster autopilot, which involved doing circles to orientate the fluxgate. That soaked up around 30 minutes. They were then heading on a line out of the bay towards the Yacht Haven Marina channel on their way to collect friends. They had been underway at around 4-5 knots under outboards for about 1 ½ hours, maybe a bit less, before they struck. They were motoring not sailing. Bob says, “We haven’t established the location of the rocks as of yet and at some point I will catch up with him and try to at least get a general area to warn about.” Read More
