Qld: Search for missing yachtsmen to focus on islands

AAP General News (Australia)
04-27-2007
Qld: Search for missing yachtsmen to focus on islands

BRISBANE, April 27 AAP - Queensland emergency service volunteers have offered to use
a training mission to scour beaches and islands for three missing sailors.

Twenty-five members from the Proserpine State Emergency Service (SES) unit in north
Queensland will be on a training run this weekend around George Point and Gloucester Island
near Airlie Beach.

The catamaran Kaz II was found adrift 160km north-east of Townsville on April 18, having
left Airlie Beach's Shute Harbour three days before on a journey to Perth.

Skipper Derek Batten and brothers Peter and James Tunstead, all from Perth, remain missing.

Emergency service crews found the engine running, computers turned on, food on the
table and the GPS system operating but no sign of the boat's crew.

Authorities spent several days searching surrounding waters and family members of the
missing trio have spent the past week using chartered boats to search islands.

An SES spokesman said a fresh search would be incorporated into the training run.

"They will be in the area and will keep an eye out," the spokesman said.

The volunteers will use flat-bottomed floodboats and walk along beaches.

James Tunstead's son Shane said he was grateful for the support of the SES, but he
was unsure whether the search would prove fruitful.

"They are fairly well vegetated and mountainous (areas) ... so I don't know how the
foot search is going to go," he said.

Family members have vowed to keep searching after official searching was scaled down
to a general water police watch.

To date the family has invested tens of thousands of dollars hiring planes, helicopters
and boats, but have also been donated a crewed boat from Whitsunday locals.

AAP pjo/lh/bwl

KEYWORD: YACHT NIGHTLEAD

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