Unmanned ship found off the coast of Australia
Table set for dinner, computers and engines running, life jackets on board.
Three missing. Unlike the Mary Celeste, this ship has GPS, so hopefully we can find out what happened.
Not hard to imagine. By misadventure, A falls off, B tosses him a rope and is pulled in. C jumps in to save them.
C slaps A and B on the head, “You knuckleheads.”
It does say something about how dangerous small-boat sailing is. Even in this day and age.
My first thought was, scuba diving accident, but these guys were sailing in a 40 foot catamaran and their ages (56, 63 & 69) diminishes that possibility even further.
So that leaves only…
[sub]Pirates[/sub]
.
But there were apparently three [insert nautical name I forget for rubber things used to protect the hull] thingummies slung over the side, which strongly suggests another vessel had come alongside. I think there’s more to this.
If you asked me to bet, I reckon I’d put my money on the crew’s still being alive, and maybe some sort of fraud scam / faked death, etc. Second possibility is they met with foul play.
I used to keep the fenders over the side all the time. Nobody to see them out there and I did not want trip over them.
Pirates would have taken the valuables.
Demons. Happens all the time
Seriously tho, R’lyeh is known to be somewhere east of Australia, is it not possible that Cthulhu awoke, for he did hunger?
[sub]Picky pirates?[/sub]
Independently wealthy pirates who just wanted to keep in shape.
That too… 
So…
Picky pirates pillaging poor people parked past port, passing on puny profits, pushing patsies off plank… presumably?
.
I’m thinking shark.
They were fishing for dinner, got a big one on the line, all three of them are trying to pull it in, then yank…flying off the ship the go.
I’m still working on thre shredded sail.
Wasn’t there a similar case several years ago, where authorities finally figured out that all the yachters had decided to go overboard for a quick swim, but no one had the forethought to lower a ladder so they could climb back into the boat?
Of course, those giant squid have been a lot more active lately.
Sharks often do that, to throw investigators off the trail.
They’d kill the motor if they were going to swin, yes?
You might be thinking of an episode of “King of the Hill”.
All three of them would be damned fools to swim at the same time. I didn’t read anything about a drag, or sea anchor, and a high freeboard boat will go downwind faster than you can swim.
Most likely, especially if they were the smart and/or cautious type. What really kills that theory, however, is that the sails were still up.
The shredded sail tells the tale and I’m surprised you folks can’t tell what really happened here. This was clearly the work of a giant squid. Or is it giant octopus? I can’t remember which one has the affinity for blow-boats
You’d think. However, I’ve learned that there’s nothing so :smack: that someone, somewhere, won’t do it.
Giant squid still seems like the most logical explanation, though. Or alien abduction.
I’m going to go with “alien space bats.”
What about an alien giant squid?
Re: the shredded headsail. This sail had no boom and was not self-tacking. Since it was untended for a couple of days, perhaps it simply flapped itself to shreds.
I’ve had a foresail ripped to rags in a couple of hours, though admittedly it was in nasty weather, because I was injured and couldn’t make it to the foredeck to clear a rigging problem.
But that’s the only part of this mystery that doesn’t puzzle me.