South African sailor missing off New Zealand

6:31 PM Wed 17 Mar 2010 GMT

'Paul Van Rensburg’s planned route' .

Mystery surrounds the search for a sailor missing off East Cape on the North Island of New Zealand.

Solo sailor Paul Van Rensburg has not been sighted since leaving Tauranga in his 11 metre yacht Tafadzwa heading for Gisborne last Friday 12th March.

His last contact was by cell phone with his partner at 1.30pm on Friday. He is well overdue as the trip normally takes 32 - 36 hours, but none of his emergency apparatus has been set off.

The alarm was not raised until he failed to show up for work on Monday morning, by his partner. Mr Van Rensburg, 40, is an experienced yachtsman, and had sailed from South Africa to New Zealand in 2006 in his yacht, and had also made other trips to Fiji and other islands.

Although conditions could get rough on the passage, plenty of solo sailors have done it before.

A twin-engined PA31 and a P3 Orion are involved in the search, which has would-be rescuers baffled.

'We've got two excellent search assets out there and they are systematically working through the search plans that we've developed for them,' mission coordinator Keith Allen said. The search is expected to extend at least 150nautical miles off shore.

The steel-hulled sloop made an excellent target to find with the aeroplanes' radar Mr Allen said.

Mr Van Rensburg, 40, has so far failed to answer VHF radio calls but that could be because he was out of range or he may not have his radio turned on. But if the yacht had encountered problems why hadn't the EPIRB been set off? One of the possibilities was that the the yachtsman had become incapacitated by a medical condition, which would explain his failure to set off the beacon, Mr Allen said.

Mr Van Rensburg was known to spend most weekends on his yacht since arriving in Tauranga from South Africa in 2006.

by Sail-World Roundup

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