At least three sailors were killed and one is missing after a yacht racing from California to Mexico apparently collided with a larger ship, officials said.
The Coast Guard said a helicopter joined the search for the fourth sailor an hour after dawn yesterday. "Right now, we're continuing our search and trying to find the person," said a Coast Guard spokesman said.
It was the third racing major accident in the waters off California in recent weeks, and the second to result in fatalities.
The Newport Ocean Sailing Association said the 37ft Aegean disappeared off their online tracking system early on Saturday while it was sailing several miles off the coast near the border of Mexico and California. A Coast Guard cutter combed the waters for wreckage and the missing fourth sailor through last night.
The association said none of the bodies had been identified. "An investigation was continuing, but it appeared the damage was not inflicted by an explosion but by a collision with a ship much larger than the 37-foot vessel," it said in a statement.
The race began in Newport Beach on Friday, and the last sailboats were due to arrive in Ensenada yesterday.
The incident in the southern California waters follows two others in recent weeks off the northern California coast, which prompted the US Coast Guard on Thursday to suspend sailboat racing in the Pacific Ocean around San Francisco.
A pair of crew members from an Australian yacht on a round-the-world race were injured off Northern California when a massive wave struck the ship on March 31st.
Later, on April 14th, a series of powerful waves pummelled the 38ft yacht Low Speed Chase during the Full Crew Farallones Race, sweeping crew members overboard and tossing the vessel onto a rocky island. The Coast Guard recovered the body of one crewman, but three other men and a woman from the boat were lost at sea.
Elmer Morrissey (32), from the Highlands, Glounthaune, Co Cork, and his friend Alan Cahill (36), originally from Killeens, near Blarney on the outskirts of the city, were among those lost.
Reuters