missing yacht patanela

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Missing Yacht's Mysterious Last Words Still Puzzle Investigators 35 Years Later

The patanela was a 75-foot-long bright yellow yacht that somehow went missing in 1988..

In 1988 a famous sailing yacht went missing, leaving behind a strange final message, a mangled investigation and questions of suicide, piracy, mutiny and drug trafficking. I’ve long been fascinated by ship wrecks and disappearances and this one is one of my favorites, not only because it’s such a mysterious story, but because the ship itself was so beautiful.

The Patanela was a 75-foot-long, twin-masted, steel-hulled schooner built in Tasmania, according to Nine News . It lived an eventful life, traveling around the world as an explorer’s vessel and making headlines wherever it went. Eventually the schooner would be purchased by a businessman named in Perth named Alan Nicol, who had the intention of turning it into a charter vessel. First, Nicol, his daughter, his Skipper Ken Jones, Jones’ wife, and two crew members would take the Patanela around the southern coast of Australia to its new home at Airlie Beach in the Whitsunday Region of Queensland.

On October 16, 1988 the Patanela set out from Freemantle, Western Australia on a month-long voyage with six souls aboard. By October 29, however, Nicol and his daughter left the boat, and the crew of four continued on to Sydney where they’d meet back up with Nicol and continue on to Airlie Beach.

From here, things get weird. Jones was an experienced sailor, yet spent the majority of the voyage using the diesel engines to motor along the Australian coast. First, it seems Jones was behaving erratically. He requested funds from Nicol for fuel, and then didn’t buy any fuel. On November 9, the ship arrived off the coast of Botany Bay. And that’s when the voyage takes a strange turn for the worse, according to Nine:

At two and a half minutes to one, OTC (Overseas Telecommunication Commission), which managed all messages and radio calls from ships, received a message from skipper Ken Jones. Recorded tapes reveal these messages: KEN JONES: SYDNEY RADIO - SYDNEY RADIO SYDNEY RADIO THIS IS PATANELA PATANELA PATANELA ON CHANNEL 16 DO YOU READ? OTC: PATANELA, SYDNEY GOOD MORNING LOUD AND CLEAR OVER. KEN JONES: PATANELA - I BELIEVE WE’VE RUN OUT OF FUEL, WE’RE APPROXIMATELY 10 MILES EAST OF BOTANY BAY. KEN JONES: WE’VE HOISTED OUR SAILS AND WE’RE TACKING OUT TO THE EAST - SO TRACKING ABOUT 080

As experts involved in a reinvestigation of the ship’s appearance point out, this is a very strange message, especially from an experienced seaman like Jones. For one, he wouldn’t say “I believe we’ve run out of fuel,” as he’d very much know what the indicators for that situation would be. And if he was so low on fuel, why were his sails hoisted? The next message is even stranger:

KEN JONES: How far South is Moruya ? We’re unfamiliar with that position. How far South is it in miles from us ? “I have no explanation. I have no idea why you would make that first call to say I’m east of Botany Bay and then asking for directions to Moruya. He’d know where he is,” John Dikkenberg said. “That is very strange, that is probably the strangest thing of everything,” Adrienne Cahalan added. A third short message then static . KEN: 300 KS SOUTH……IS IT SOUTH? …. STATIC

The ship is never heard from again. Nicol reports the Patanela missing 11 days later. A lackluster investigation revealed nothing, which almost seems as to have been by design. Eventually, investigators come up with the idea that the Patanela was hit by a larger cargo vessel and sank – without any of the ships in the harbor showing damage, without any wreckage of the yacht, without the automatic distress beacon being tripped, and despite the latest sonar equipment onboard with an experienced sailor at the helm keeping them far from danger.

There’s also the problem of the sightings: the Patanela was easily identifiable with its brilliant yellow hull, and it was spotted several times up and down the coast of Australia and even in the waters off of Thailand and Southeast Asia.

And then there’s the life buoy, which turned up six months later in Sydney with the letters Patanela written across it and marine life that seemed to indicate it came from the Coral Sea – about a thousand miles or more north from Sydney and the last known location of the Patanela.

There are a lot of possible theories on what happened to the Patanela, and every journalist or armchair investigator out there has their favorite. During the first leg of the journey, Jones was in an emotional state due to his own yacht being seized and his personal company was in distress. The fact that such an experienced sailor spent most of the journey under motor could indicate his state of mind. Nicol also suspected the previous owner of trying to reclaim the Patanela after he complained about being swindled in the deal to sell it to Nicol.

But it doesn’t explain the strange broadcast. Jones’ son told reporters that he believed it was a coded cry for help. It just so happens that the two young crew members aboard – John Blissett and Michael Calvin – had just finished work on the Australian film “Dead Calm,” which is a thriller about a yacht being hijacked.

Did life imitate art? Or did the danger Jones tried to warn the OTC of come in the form of more professional hijackers? After the ship’s disappearance, Nicol spent $30,000 of his own funds to investigate every sighting of the Patanela. The big yellow ship was a rare make and style, easily spotted from shore by even landlubbers. When seen the was Patanela always at a distance in open waters and rarely came to shore; when it did come to shore it was always spotted in way out of the way areas. These are signs, Nicol believed, that indicate the Patanela was being used for drug smuggling. And worse yet, certain members of the police may have been in on the caper, as the YouTube channel Barely Sociable explains:

Once Nicol reported the ship missing a search was refused on the basis that, after 11 days, the search area would be an impossible 200,000-square-kilometer area. Then a federal detective working with a judicial coroner declared the Patanela had been hit and sank that same day, just ten miles off the coast of Botany Bay, but no search was ever done to track down the wreck.

As Nicol noted in his investigation, police are often paid off by drug smugglers, and indeed, the coroner assigned to the case made previous questionable judgements in cases involving potential drug smuggling activities. Sightings of the Patanela near the Golden Triangle of heroin production in Southeast Asia could also point to the Patanela being hijacked and pressed into drug smuggling. If that’s the case the Patanela has long ago been modified and registered under a different name and flag by crooked politicians on the other side of the sea.

The Schooner Patanela which disappeared off the Sydney coast.

The final voyage of the Patanela, the Aussie boat that vanished without a trace

Pedestrian TV . By Josephine Rozenberg-Clarke .

Exactly 30 years ago today, on October 16 1988, a 19-metre schooner called the Patanela set off on a month-long voyage from Fremantle, WA‘s busy port city, with an end destination of Airlie Beach, part of QLD‘s Whitsundays region. But the boat would never arrive, making it an unsolved mystery still baffling people to this day.

In the latest episode of PEDESTRIAN.TV‘s unsolved mystery podcast  All Aussie Mystery Hour , we look at the Patanela ‘s mysterious final voyage.

The yacht was owned by wealthy businessman Alan Nicol, and the captain was a bloke named Ken Jones, who manned the ship alongside his wife Noreen and their daughter Ronnalee. They were joined by two crew members named Michael Calvin and John Blisset.

Alan alighted at Esperance because he had work commitments and Ronnalee got off the boat at Port Eyre. The boat and Ken, Noreen, Michael and John continued on, seemingly with no issues. Until around 1am on November 8, when Ken, apparently located off Port Botany in Sydney, radioed in to Sydney Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC) operator Keith McLennan the following message:

I believe we’ve run out of fuel…we’ve hoisted our sails and we’re tacking out to the east, tracking about zero-eight-zero…our intention is to tack out for a couple of hours, then tack back in. We may need some assistance in the morning to get back into Sydney Harbour.

Keith said than Ken didn’t sound distressed, and the call itself was fairly routine. The weather was overcast yet calm, and the Patanela was more than capable of navigating those kind of conditions.

There was a second call asking for directions to the south coast town of Moruya which was slightly odd as it was in the opposite direction to where they were headed. And in the third call, received at 2am, things got a bit weird. The line was all static, and Ken could be heard saying: “Three hundred kilometres south? Is it? South…”

There was no further communication from the Patanela and the yacht never made it to Airlie Beach. No trace of the boat or the crew has ever been seen again — aside from a buoy marked “Patanela, Fremantle” plucked from the waters off Terrigal, on NSW’s Central Coast, the following year.

There was also a message in a bottle found in 2007, almost 20 years after the boat disappeared. But for all those mysterious details, you’ll just have to listen to the episode. Subscribe on iTunes HERE , or on Spotify HERE . Or, you can just listen / download below.

Listen to the podcast at Pedestrian TV .

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The Unexplained Disappearance Of The Patanela

It's believed that for at least 50,000 years people have traveled the oceans, even though the oldest known archaeological evidence of seafaring only dates back to about 8,000 BC, according to Ancient Port Antiques . In those tens of thousands of years, untold numbers of vessels, and the crews on them, have simply disappeared, most likely sunk to the bottom of the sea, destined to spend eternity in their watery graves.

You would think that with modern standards of ship-making, and with modern navigation and weather-monitoring methods, as well as ready communication with other humans on the ground, wholesale disappearances of ships and their crew would be rare. And while they are indeed rare, as recently as 1988, according to MySailing , a vessel seemingly disappeared off the face of the Earth. The Patanela, a 63-foot schooner, departed Western Australia and was never heard from again.

Deepening the mystery of the Australian vessel is the fact that, two decades after her disappearance, according to Sail-World , a beachcomber found a message in a bottle, written by a member of the ship's crew. However, the message appears to have been not a plea for rescue, but a mundane account of the voyage and an invitation to call a phone number to claim a prize.

The Patanela and Her Crew

The Patanela was, according to Sail-World , one of the most advanced ships on the ocean in its day. Owned by a wealthy businessman named Alan Nicol, according to MySailing , over the course of 30 years, the vessel had completed several voyages, both treacherous and mundane, which included sailing the rough waters around Antarctica as well as circumnavigating the globe. The ship was equipped with all of the latest safety, communication, and navigation equipment, and was considered "unsinkable" by those who had traveled on it.

On its final voyage, according to Sydney Morning Herald , its passengers consisted of two crewmen named Michael Calvin and John Blissett, a Perth couple named Ken and Noreen Jones. Their daughter. Ronnallee, was also on board for part of the voyage, according to My Sailing . On this particular voyage, according to ABC News Australia , Ken Jones was the skipper. How and why Calvin and Blissett were on board is unclear; the author of a book published after the disappearance, "The Patanela is Missing," by Robert Reid, the two had discussed stealing a vessel and might have "talked their way onto" the craft. The four of them were never heard from again.

The Patanela's Final Voyage

The Patanela departed from Fremantle, Western Australia (per My Sailing ), on October 16, 1988, according to Sydney Morning Herald , with a view towards making a leisurely sail to Airlie Beach, where another crew was to take over the ship. At some point before the voyage, Calvin wrote a message to his twin sister, Sue, detailing his plans for what was to happen when the voyage ended. 

"Myself and John will then drive, fly or bus back to Taree for [Christmas], maybe two weeks then make our way back to start up a charter business onboard." Perhaps eerily, he also added, "We have just made a message in a bottle for a free holiday onboard the Patanela."

At some point during the voyage, the ship stopped at Port Eyre, and Ronnalle departed, for reasons that remain unclear. The boat continued its voyage, "seemingly with no issues," as My Sailing notes, until November 8. That would be the last communication from the ship before it disappeared.

No Signs Of Distress

At some point on or around November 1, 1988, according to My Sailing , Ken Jones made the first of what would be the Patanela's final three calls to shore. Likely near Port Botany in Sydney, Jones radioed into Sydney Overseas Telecommunications Commission. "I believe we've run out of fuel ... we've hoisted our sails and we're tacking out to the east, tracking about zero-eight-zero ... our intention is to tack out for a couple of hours, then tack back in. We may need some assistance in the morning to get back into Sydney Harbor." The man on the other end of the line, Keith McLennan, would later say that the call was routine and that Jones didn't seem distressed.

In a second call, Jones asked for directions to Moruya, which was out of the way from the direction the ship was heading. The third and final call was equally mysterious: it was mostly static, but what could be heard was something like, "Three hundred kilometers south? Is it? South ..." The vessel was never heard from again, save for a buoy, found a year later, marked "Patanela, Fremantle."

A Messge In A Bottle

Sometime in 2008, according to Sydney Morning Herald , Sheryl Waideman, her husband, Gary, and her brother Doug, were beachcombing on a remote beach near Eucla when Sheryl found a bottle with a message in it. This shocked her, as the beach is so remote that she anticipated little to no human activity that day.

Once the bottle was pried open, they found a message. As Sail World reports, John Blissett had written it on October 23, 1988, and tossed it into the sea. "Hi there — out here in the lonely Southern Ocean and thought we would give away a free holiday in the Whitsunday Islands in north Queensland , Australia. Our ship is traveling from Fremantle, Western Aust, to Queensland to work as a charter vessel." The note also included two phone numbers to call to claim a weeklong sailing holiday as a prize.

Sheryl called the numbers out of curiosity, according to Sydney Morning Herald , and perhaps unsurprisingly, got no answer. "It was only after we searched on the internet that we realized what had happened," she said.

What Happened to The Patanela?

In 1992, according to Sail-World , the Australian government looked into the disappearance of the Patanela and concluded that the vessel foundered early in the morning of November 8, 1988, not long after its last radio contact. The inquiry did not offer up any explanation as to how or why.

Over the decades, various conspiracy theories have popped up. One suggests that a shipping container -– significantly larger than the Patanela –- ran over the smaller ship, although there was little freight traffic in the part of the ocean where the ship was believed to have disappeared. Claims of piracy and drug running have also popped up over the years, but there's no evidence to support or disprove those claims.

In his book, "The Patanela Is Missing," by Robert Reid, excerpted via ABC News Australia , the author posits that Calvin and Blissett had spoken about plans to hijack the vessel and sail it about "a la Erroll Flynn ," as Reid describes it. "They were engaged in those conversations, turn up across the country, talk their way on board a vessel, that vessel goes missing in very mysterious circumstances. Those are the facts ...," he wrote.

Ghost Ship: What happened to the Patanela?

The ship was the Patanela, a twin-masted, steel-hulled schooner on its way to North Queensland with four people on board. Not a trace of them has ever been found.

Under Investigation gathered a panel of some of this country's greatest maritime experts - retired Submarine Commander John Dikkenberg, world renowned yachtswoman and lawyer Adrienne Cahalan, author and investigator Robert Reid who spent years investigating the Patanela and former Victorian Search and Rescue commander Ian Veitch who has conducted dozens of searches at sea.

A coronial inquest determined the Patanela was the victim of a hit and run collision, probably with a  much larger tanker and was forced to the bottom of the sea with all hands on board.

It's a finding UI's panel of experts doubt with alternate theories being debated including hijack, a murder-suicide or a different accident scenario which saw the crew in a life boat in worsening conditions who eventually drowned at sea.

And to add to the mystery a retired police officer broke a 30 year silence to detail the sighting of a ship he is certain was the Patanela.

WATCH THE FULL INVESTIGATION ON 9NOW HERE

Built to last

The Patanela was hand built in the mid 1950's in Tasmania, the first steel-hulled ship of its kind constructed there and one of the rarest vessels in the country.

It had a spectacular career ferrying scientific teams to the Antarctic, operating as a crayfishing vessel in some of the toughest and roughest seas, before being bought by a wealthy West Australian businessman who planned to use the boat as a tourist charter in North Queensland.

The vessel was equipped with the latest technology, colour radar and anti collision and completely refitted for its voyage from Fremantle to Airlie Beach.

"It was about as unsinkable as you could get with a steel vessel," Robert Reid told Ui.

"It was a robust, steel, 75-foot schooner and had proved to be a well-founded, seagoing large yacht," Submariner John Dikkenberg noted.

The delivery captain was Ken Jones who was joined by his wife Noreen for the trip. Two young deckhands from country New South Wales, John Blissett and Michael Calvin also signed on.

It was meant to be a routine journey but ended in doom and mystery.

On October 16, 1988 the Patanela set out from Fremantle bound for Queensland.

On board the four crew who were joined by Alan Nicol the owner and the skipper's daughter Ronnalee Jones. They would stay for part of the journey.

For most of the early part of the trip there was no indication anything was wrong.

Halfway across the Great Australian Bight the two young crew members penned a letter in a bottle inviting whoever found their message to join them for a holiday in Queensland. All seemed happy, ship shape.

"Out here in the lonely Southern Ocean and thought we would give away a free holiday in the Whitsunday Islands in north Queensland".  The note read signed by John Blissett.

But about the same time skipper Ken Jones received a distressing call from his son in Perth. Jones' yacht The Fremantle Doctor had been repossessed and his business was facing massive financial problems.

This was the first hint of any trouble on this trip and immediately raised red flags for UI's panel of experts.

John Dikkenberg, alert to the moods of crew in submarines, noted:

"My entire reading of Ken Jones was that at the very least, he was under a lot of pressure."

Dikkenberg also noted Jones, an experienced deep water sailor and yachtsman, had spent vast amounts of time motoring during his voyage, not using the schooner's sails.

He wondered if Jones' financial pressures have caused more emotional distress than anyone knew and eventually led to a break down and murder suicide on board.

"And this would explain to me why a really well-founded mariner, someone with thousands of sea miles, a good mariner in every respect, just went to sea in a very depressed state," he said.

As the Patanela approached Portland in Victoria only Ken Jones, his wife and the two crewmen were on board. Owner Alan Nicol had disembarked in Esperance, Ronnalee Jones in Port Lincoln, South Australia.

Then strangely upon arrival Jones rang the boat's owner requesting $500 for fuel which bizarrely he didn't purchase.

This raised concerns with UI's panel.

"That seems a bit strange that if he's motoring across the Great Australian Bight, if he's asked for money, it means that he wants the fuel. But it just adds to the mystery of why he didn't and he requested the money and been given the money," former Search and Rescue boss Ian Veitch told UI.

The Patanela, re-stocked with some supplies but no extra fuel continued on its voyage.

On November 7th the ship was seen motoring past a lighthouse in Jervis Bay, south of Sydney.

And in the early hours of the morning of November 8th the Patanela arrived off the coast of Botany Bay.

But there was a problem.

Radio Calls

At two and a half minutes to one, OTC (Overseas Telecommunication Commission), which managed all messages and radio calls from ships, received a message from skipper Ken Jones.

Recorded tapes reveal these messages:

KEN JONES: SYDNEY RADIO - SYDNEY RADIO SYDNEY RADIO THIS IS PATANELA PATANELA PATANELA  ON CHANNEL 16 DO YOU READ?

OTC: PATANELA, SYDNEY GOOD MORNING LOUD AND CLEAR OVER.

KEN JONES: PATANELA - I BELIEVE  WE'VE RUN OUT OF FUEL, WE'RE APPROXIMATELY 10 MILES EAST OF BOTANY BAY.

KEN JONES: WE'VE HOISTED OUR SAILS AND WE'RE TACKING OUT TO THE EAST - SO TRACKING ABOUT 080

Running out of fuel - having motored for the majority of the voyage - stunned the panel of experts, but also the words where Ken Jones claimed he "thought" he'd run out of fuel perplexed them.

"I would've thought that if you're going to run out of fuel, you keep sailing and you save whatever fuel you've got," John Dikkenberg told the panel.

"if he's running out of fuel, you would sail and save that fuel for when you did need it. And to say I think I've run out of fuel, you think he'd be experienced enough to know whether he has run out of fuel or not, " Ian Veitch added.

Veteran yachtswoman Adrienne Cahalan believed Jones may just have been distracted.

"So that he mightn't have been on his game and then not taking on the fuel. It might have been a risk that he took that he might have thought, "Oh well I'll get it in Eden." And then he got to Eden thought, "Oh no, I'll make it to Sydney, it'll be okay." And that gamble didn't pay off, "she said.

In that same message to OTC, Ken Jones also indicated he might need assistance entering Sydney Harbour the next morning - another call which intrigued our panel.

But if this first message was unusual, a second an hour later totally baffled UI's panel of experts.

KEN JONES: How far South is Moruya ?

We're unfamiliar with that position.

How far South is it in miles  from us ?

"I have no explanation. I have no idea why you would make that first call to say I'm east of Botany Bay and then asking for directions to Moruya. He'd know where he is," John Dikkenberg said.

"That is very strange, that is probably the strangest thing of everything," Adrienne Cahalan added.

A third short message then static .

KEN: 300 KS SOUTH……IS IT SOUTH? …. STATIC

Then silence and the Patanela is never heard from again.

The unusual nature of the OTC radio calls led author and investigator Robert Reid to believe foul play was involved.

Reid, who investigated the disappearance for years, maintains to this day the Patanela was hijacked by a third party who boarded the vessel, or by the two young crewmen on board.

Coincidentally, John Blissett and Michael Calvin had worked on the Australian movie "Dead Calm" , a chilling story of a yacht  being hijacked.

Robert Reid believed there were too many coincidences.

"When you look at the so-called coincidence that they'd been talking about that. Then Calvin turns up in Fremantle and talks his way onto the Patanela. Then Blisset turns up, two old mates, and he gets on board as well. So they turn up on Patanela and she goes missing."

John Blissett's mother Marj refuted that theory out of hand.

"They wouldn't. They were not like that. They knew what was right and what was wrong in life. This was not something they would do," she said.

And there was nothing in their actions leading up to the disappearance which indicated the boys intended piracy and hijack. Their carefree message in a bottle seems to show they were having a good time.

Sudden sink

A Coroner ruled the Patanela was the victim of a sudden sinking after a massive collision with another vessel, most likely a much larger tanker.

Dozens of ships were investigated, but only one, a 43,000 tonne bulk carrier, the Howard Smith, was anywhere near the Patanela at the time.

Howard Smith crew members  told Federal Police they did not see the smaller vessel on radar nor heard a collision and there was no sign of any impact with another ship.

What mystified UI's panel of experts was the complete lack of any debris.

"With any search, you usually find some debris, something to indicate either an accident or something that's floated from the vessel when it sank. In this, there's just nothing," Ian Veitch noted.

Nothing was found until almost six months later when a life buoy, clearly marked as Patanela's was located off the coast of Terrigal north of Sydney.

Adrienne Cahalan, using weather and tidal data from that time, concluded any debris would have been washed out to sea. And with a search not being instigated for 11 days after the disappearance the likelihood of finding anything else was remote.

Australia's Ghost Ship, the Patanela was sighted dozens of times after that ill-fated night.

All were investigated and only one seemed credible.

Retired New South Wales police officer Ted McCarthy and his wife saw a vacht matching the Patanela in March 1989, months after the disappearance.

Armed with a magazine article with a picture of the Patanela, McCarthy compared the picture with the boat using his binoculars.

He remained convinced he was witnessing the missing schooner.

" I identified a number of points, things like it had square portholes, which was a bit unusual. It was blue, the colour was all exactly the same, the rigging was the same. The wheelhouse down the back of the boat was as, per the picture. And up the front on the bowsprit area, there was plaited rope which was quite noticeable and quite obvious, and it was on the Patanela," Ted McCarthy detailed to UI.

He radioed the vessel asking for identification and whoever was onboard denied the ship was the Patanela.

If it was, it hoisted anchor later that evening and disappeared for all time.

Conclusions

At least three of UI's panel of experts are convinced human intervention was behind the disappearance of the Patanela - whether hijack by persons unknown, by the crew members or the captain himself.

But Adrienne Cahalan holds a completely different view - that the ship was involved in an accident at sea and the crew were claimed in a lifeboat in worsening ocean conditions.

Regardless of their differences they all agree the Patanela mystery, Australia's most famous Ghost Ship, may never be solved.

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Today I Discovered The Patanela Mystery – An Aussie Boat That Disappeared Into Thin Air

While the tale of the Mary Celeste is one of the most enduring stories of missing ship crews, the Patanela is Australia’s very own maritime mystery. This ship vanished without a trace while approaching Sydney Harbour in calm seas in November 1988, leaving behind only a barnacle-encrusted lifebuoy and a message in a bottle.

The Patanela was a 19-metre steel schooner that was known to be incredibly sturdy – having undertaken a number of Antarctic voyages and global circumnavigations under difficult conditions. Michael Calvin was one of the crewmen aboard the yacht, and the last communication from the vessel came in the form of a letter posted by Calvin at Port Lincoln, sent to his twin sister.

The ship was headed up the coast on its way to Airlie beach, where Calvin and his friend John Blisset had been promised use of the Patanela for a charter business. Just a few weeks later, however, the boat simply disappeared in waters off Sydney. No mayday call was received and no distress flares were sighted, no debris nor bodies turned up on Sydney’s shores – it simply vanished without a trace.

Almost 20 years after the ship’s disappearance, on New Years Eve 2007, a couple on a beach at Eucla, near the border between WA and SA, found a hand-written message in a bottle. Dated just a week or two before the disappearance, the note read:

Hi there. Out here in the lonely Southern Ocean and thought we would give away a free holiday in the Whitsunday Islands in north Queensland, Australia. Our ship is travelling from Fremantle, Western Aust, to Queensland to work as a charter vessel.

The only other trace of the Patanela that has otherwise been found was a barnacle-encrusted lifebuoy that was discovered floating off Terrigal almost seven months after the disappearance. Over the years there have been numerous rumoured sightings, leading to theories of hijacking and foul play, but nothing was ever confirmed about the fate of the Patanela and her crew.

Today I Discovered is a daily dose of wisdom for Lifehacker readers – the weird, wonderful and sometimes worrying. Most of the time, it’s just mind-blowing. Let us know if you discovered anything that blew your mind in the comments!

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One response to “Today I Discovered The Patanela Mystery – An Aussie Boat That Disappeared Into Thin Air”

Mary Celeste wasn’t a missing ship.

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Message in a Bottle

• January 29, 2008

Message from yacht lost in 1988 washes up on Australian beach

A Sailor’s message in a bottle has been discovered on a beach in Western Australia – two decades after the boat that he and three others were sailing in vanished off NSW. The note, in faded blue handwriting inside a Bacardi bottle, was found by Esperance woman Sheryl Waideman on New Year’s Eve on a secluded beach near Eucla. It was written by John Blissett, 23, of Taree, NSW, as he and three others sailed the schooner the Patanela from Fremantle across the great Australian Bight on October 26, 1988.

Less than two weeks later, Patanela simply vanished as she sailed some 18km off Botany Bay in the early hours of November 8, 1988. The crew planned to enter the harbour at dawn. The solitary trace was a barnacle-encrusted lifebuoy found floating off Terrigal seven months later.

The note in a bottle sheds no light on what happened. Rather, it offers a sailing holiday to the lucky finder. “Hi there – out here in the lonely Southern Ocean and thought we would give away a free holiday in the Whitsunday Islands in north Queensland, Australia,” John wrote. “Our ship is travelling from Fremantle, Western Aust, to Queensland to work as a charter vessel.”

The note invites the finder to call one of a pair of phone numbers to claim the prize. It gives Patanela’s position as 34 degrees, 26 minutes, 20 seconds south, 129 degrees, 18 minutes, 54 seconds east in the Great Australia Bight.

John’s mother Marj, of Taree, said she was stunned to receive a message from Mrs Waideman revealing the discovery. “It was totally unexpected. It is not going to solve the mystery but it is a little piece of John we never had,” she said. “It showed what an enjoyable and interesting trip they were having. They were two young blokes having a good time and they wanted to give somebody else a good time to enjoy the experience of sailing on such a magnificent vessel.”

Aboard Patanela, a 19-metre steel-hulled schooner, was Mr Blissett and his friend Michael Calvin, both from Taree, plus the skipper, Perth businessman Ken Jones and his wife Noreen. None have been sighted since Patanela departed Portland, Victoria, in early November. An inquest which started in 1992 concluded that Patanela foundered in the early hours of November 8, 1988 some time after a final radio contact with Sydney Harbour. Nothing remained to explain the vessel’s fate.

The disappearance sparked wide speculation and a variety of conspiracy theories including claims of piracy and drug running. There is no evidence to either substantiate or disprove any such claims.

The coroner concluded the most likely explanation for such a sudden disappearance was that Patanela was run over by a large commercial vessel – although there was a complete absence of any floating wreckage such a short distance off Sydney.

Story: Perth Now Read the full article here.

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Patanela is (still) missing

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It's been 35 years since the Patanela, a 19-metre schooner, was reported missing somewhere between Sydney and Airlie Beach in North Queensland with four people on board.

Three years later, in 1991 investigative journalists Robert Reid and Paul Whitaker co-authored a book titled, "Patanela is Missing," detailing the mystery including the highly unlikely conclusion reached by the AFP that it had indeed sank.

Now more than three decades on the book is still relevant because the Panatela's disappearance remains a mystery.

Channel Nine will feature the case in an upcoming television series and Robert Reid explained how a decades-old theory of mutiny aboard the vessel is still the most likely answer.

He's explaining to ABC Regional Queensland presenter Phil Staley. 

• Phil Staley, Author

In this episode

Maritime mystery remains unsolved

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Patanela Is Missing

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Sunk Without a Trace

In 1993 Reid co-authored (with journalist Paul Whittaker) PATANELA IS MISSING, an investigative account of Australia’s greatest sea mystery. Patanela, a 19-metre steel schooner, vanished without trace while approaching Sydney Harbour in November 1988. But Patanela was one of the sturdiest yachts afloat and was famous for her Antarctic voyages and circumnavigations of the globe.

Description

She was considered by those who sailed her, and by the man who built her, to be virtually unsinkable. Constructed of steel with four watertight bulkheads, Patanela carried the latest safety and navigational equipment. During her three decades sailing the roughest seas in the world, Patanela did not falter.

Down she went or did she?

There are few who believe she faltered on that calm November night, within sight of the lights of Botany Bay. There was no mayday call, no distress flares sighted, no debris, and no bodies as evidence of her sinking.

Reid and Whittaker spent three years investigating Patanela’s disappearance. Their startling conclusions show that truth is often stranger than fiction. This is a conundrum yet unsolved, one that seems to defy a definitive answer. It is truly Australia’s greatest sea mystery.

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Investigates and speculates about the mysterious disappearance of the luxury schooner Patanela on 8 November, 1988 within 10 nautical miles of Sydney Harbour. Includes photographs, a map of Patanela’s final voyage, and a transcript of her last known radio contact. pp. 48 illusts #1119R/081221 Age tanning to edges.

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The last voyage of the patanela, 14 comments:.

It is always very eerie when boats and ships disappear without a trace. The ocean is vast and still mysterious, so the possible fates of the "Patanela" are limitless.

Pirates. It's almost always some kind of pirates...

I'm thinking you may be a bit impartial on that topic, Pauline...

Probably less than objective at least.

"He said they appeared to have run out of fuel." One would think that the skipper would know exactly if he had run out if fuel. If he had run out of fuel, and was only 10 miles of the coast, then maybe the Patanela could have dropped anchor for the night, and then get a tow or other assistance next morning. The Patanela was built with several watertight compartments, and on an earlier trip had travelled safely for a fair distance after ripping open the hull on the Tasmanian coast. One of the police theories was that the three messages received from the Patanela were "fakes", and that the yacht (and possibly the crew) were somewhere else.

Reminds me a bit of some of the theories about MH370's disappearance.

https://graham64.wordpress.com/2015/08/27/the-mysterious-disappearance-of-the-patanela/

That's me!

I looked up the name Michael Calvin and found this. Only Wind and Water: Story of the BT Global Challenge ISBN-13: 978-0861019915, ISBN-10: 0861019911 Format: Hardcover Strange Coincedence?

All to strange OUT of fuel oh come on. Off Botany wanting to go to Moruya Really why .. No reason to say he was out of fuel we are talking about an ocean going vessel. Yes I was a fisherman and have works out Of Esperance the Bight Port Lincoln Eden up the coast to Cairns Weipa Karumba this vessel didn't founder no way.. To strange.. Will never know Drugs murder take over pirates NOT Likely in these waters.. A mystery but I figure this vessel is somewhere other than on the bottom..

SO YOU THINK THE BOAT WAS DIGUISE AND SOLD. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FOUR PEOPLE ON THE BOAT. IT SEEMS BLOODY UNLIKELY THAT TWO CREW MEN WOULD TAKE THE BOAT AND NEVER CONTACT THEIR SISTER AGAIN. BUT COULD BE A POSSIBILITY.

"WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FOUR PEOPLE ON THE BOAT." I think that they were murdered and tossed overboard by whoever took control of the boat.

I Went on Ken's boat " Fremantle Doctor" 3 yrs earlier. He sailed it to Rotto and back to Freo. Very good Sailor. He and his wife were so nice. Tragedy what happened to them. Lucky his daughter got off in Adelaide.

Larry Horowitz's Paul Jack...! There be no dancin in the grave yard .

Comments are moderated. Because no one gets to be rude and obnoxious around here except the author of this blog.

An abandoned, burned boat and 2 missing men: South African authorities investigate maritime mystery

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — South African authorities searching for a missing charter boat captain are concerned about possible foul play after they discovered his vessel burned and abandoned on a beach in neighboring Mozambique, but no sign of him or the unknown man who hired him.

The National Sea Rescue Institute raised the alarm over captain John Matambu and his passenger after they didn’t return to Sodwana Bay on South Africa’s northeastern coast on Saturday evening having gone out early that morning.

The charred wreck of Matambu’s speed boat, Magnum Too, was discovered by a search plane on Sunday in the Dobela area of Mozambique, some 170 kilometers (105 miles) up the coast.

“Both men remain missing in unknown circumstances,” the National Sea Rescue Institute said.

Matambu’s cousin told local media that a petrol canister and a medical kit were found near the boat.

The NSRI said some of the circumstances “appear to indicate that foul play may be involved.”

The man who hired Matambu to take him out on the 21-foot (6.4-meter) boat apparently gave false contact details, NSRI spokesperson Craig Lambinon said. The booking was made for a man, his wife and a child, but only the man boarded the boat, Lambinon said.

“Hopes are that this has all been a misunderstanding, and foul play was not involved, but at this stage all possibilities are being examined,” Lambinon told national broadcaster SABC. “The fact that the boat has been found across the border is obviously the difficulty now.”

The NSRI received a report that the boat was spotted at 10 p.m. Saturday night heading north toward Mozambican waters, it said, the last sighting before its charred hull was discovered the following day.

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3 people are dead, several missing after migrant boat runs into trouble off southeastern Spain

MADRID (AP) — Authorities say a boat carrying a group of migrants ran into trouble off the coast of southeastern Spain killing at least three people and several others were believed missing. Spain’s Maritime Rescue Service said in a statement Friday that two survivors and three bodies were found on a partially sunken boat off the coast near the town of Motril. The two survivors said the boat had been carrying 12 people when it set sail from Algeria six days ago, leading authorities to suspect seven others may have fallen into the sea. Tens of thousands of migrants from sub-Saharan countries fleeing poverty, conflict and instability in West Africa try to reach Spain each year in large open boats.

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3 people are dead, several missing after migrant boat runs into trouble off southeastern Spain

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MADRID (AP) — A boat carrying a group of migrants ran into trouble off the coast of southeastern Spain killing at least three people and several others were believed missing, authorities said Friday.

Spain’s Maritime Rescue Service said in a statement that two survivors and three bodies were found on a partially sunken boat off the coast near the town of Motril. The two survivors said the boat had been carrying 12 people when it set sail from Algeria six days ago, leading authorities to suspect seven others may have fallen into the sea.

The two survivors and three bodies were taken by helicopter to the mainland.

Tens of thousands of migrants from sub-Saharan countries fleeing poverty, conflict and instability in West Africa try to reach Spain each year in large open boats. Most go to the Canary Islands in the Atlantic , while others from Morocco , Algeria and Middle Eastern countries try to cross the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean to mainland Spain. Several thousand die making the hazardous journey.

The Interior Ministry says 14, 405 migrants arrived in Spain by boat between Jan. 1 and Mar. 15, up from 3,528 in the same period last year. The vast majority arrived on the Canary Island route.

Follow AP’s global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

3 people are dead, several missing after migrant boat runs into trouble off southeastern Spain

Authorities say a boat carrying a group of migrants ran into trouble off the coast of southeastern Spain killing at least three people and several others were believed missing

MADRID -- A boat carrying a group of migrants ran into trouble off the coast of southeastern Spain killing at least three people and several others were believed missing, authorities said Friday.

Spain's Maritime Rescue Service said in a statement that two survivors and three bodies were found on a partially sunken boat off the coast near the town of Motril. The two survivors said the boat had been carrying 12 people when it set sail from Algeria six days ago, leading authorities to suspect seven others may have fallen into the sea.

The two survivors and three bodies were taken by helicopter to the mainland.

Tens of thousands of migrants from sub-Saharan countries fleeing poverty, conflict and instability in West Africa try to reach Spain each year in large open boats. Most go to the Canary Islands in the Atlantic, while others from Morocco, Algeria and Middle Eastern countries try to cross the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean to mainland Spain. Several thousand die making the hazardous journey.

The Interior Ministry says 14, 405 migrants arrived in Spain by boat between Jan. 1 and Mar. 15, up from 3,528 in the same period last year. The vast majority arrived on the Canary Island route.

Follow AP’s global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

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France to work on new UN Gaza ceasefire resolution, Macron says

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