Three dead, one missing in yacht race mishap off California/Mexico coast

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Three crew members of a sailboat have been found dead and a fourth person is missing after their boat ran into trouble during a yacht race off the coasts of California and Mexico.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Henry Dunphy says rescuers are searching late Saturday for the crew member after finding the bodies and debris from the boat near the Coronado Islands in Mexico.
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The 37-foot Aegean was participating in the 125-mile Newport to Ensenada International Yacht Race that began Friday. Its home port is Redondo Beach.
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The Newport Ocean Sailing Association, the race organizer, said the accident occurred late Friday or early Saturday several miles off the coast near the ocean border of the two countries.

"It appeared the damage was not inflicted by an explosion but by a collision with a ship much larger than the 37-foot vessel," association spokesman Rich Roberts said in a news release early Sunday.

Race officials believe there are few other possibilities for what caused the accident, Roberts later told The Associated Press, speaking by phone from Ensenada.

He said details were still scarce but it was possible that if the smaller boat was bobbing around in light wind, the crew might not have been able to get out of the way of a larger ship, perhaps a freighter.

The race goes through shipping lanes and it's possible for a large ship to hit a sailboat and not even know it, especially at night, he said.

Roberts said a race tracking system indicated that the boat disappeared about 1:30 a.m. PDT Saturday.

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SAN DIEGO (AP) -- An American yacht destroyed while racing from California to Mexico ended up on the rocky shore of an island just past the border, according to a website that tracks boats by GPS, potentially undercutting the theory that it was crushed by a large ship.

Coast Guard investigators have not recovered the GPS device but will consider the coordinates as they try to determine what caused the crash of the 37-foot Aegean that killed three sailors and left one missing, agency spokesman Lt. Bill Burwell said Tuesday.
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