AP News, May 7th, 2007
The families of three men who disappeared from their yacht in mysterious circumstances off the northeast Australian coast have called off their search, a spokesman said Monday.
There has been no sign of skipper Derek Batten, 56, and brothers Peter and James Tunstead, aged 69 and 63, since their catamaran Kaz II was found adrift on the Great Barrier Reef 100 miles northeast of the city of Townsville on April 18.
Police suspect the trio were probably swept overboard in rough weather and had likely drowned.
The three men all from the west coast city of Perth, had left Airlie Beach's Shute Harbor three days earlier on the first leg of a two-month trip around Australia's north coast.
When their yacht was discovered by coastal patrol, computers were still running, food was on the table, safety equipment was still on board and there was no indication of how the men disappeared.
The authorities stopped searching just days later, but nine family members _ sons and nephews of the missing men _ continued to look. They spent tens of thousands of dollars hiring planes, helicopters and boats to scour nearby islands.
Family spokesman Glenn Tunstead Monday said the family felt a "sense of failure" at not being able to locate the men.
"It was very emotional for everybody involved," he told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
"There was a sense of failure, (but) on the other hand it was a sense of they did everything they possibly could, and we didn't achieve the outcome that we wanted," he added.
