(Adds Coast Guard suspends search)
By Emmett Berg
SAN FRANCISCO, April 15 (Reuters) – Rescuers halted a search
on Sunday for four sailors swept overboard after powerful waves
battered their boat during a yacht race, tossing it into rocks
around islands off San Francisco, officials said.
The body of one sailor was recovered and the suspension of
rescue efforts brought the presumed death toll from Saturday’s
accident to five.
“An air and sea search was suspended indefinitely around
sundown and we will not go back tomorrow,” U.S. Coast Guard
spokesman Caleb Critchfield said.
“We kept searching 12 hours past what we consider the
survivability window. We extend our deepest sympathy and our
hearts go out to the family and friends of the victims,” he
added.
The vessel Low Speed Chase, a 38-foot (11.5-meter) racing
and cruising sailboat with a crew of eight, was one of 49 yachts
competing on Saturday in a race around South Farallon Island,
part of a rugged, sparsely populated chain offshore from San
Francisco.
Officials said trouble began as the vessel rounded South
Farallon Island on Saturday afternoon. A large wave initially
swept four crew members into the ocean and when those remaining
aboard tried to turn the craft around, another wave pushed the
boat onto rocks, where it foundered. Local media said the second
wave tossed three more people into the water.
Air units from the Coast Guard and California Air National
Guard lifted off after receiving an emergency transmission from
a satellite beacon on the Low Speed Chase, as well as a mayday
radio call from a nearby yacht, officials said.
The accident came two weeks after a monster wave smashed
into an Australian yacht taking part in a round-the-world race.
Four crew members were hurt in that accident, which took place
400 nautical miles off the California coast, and the Coast Guard
had to be called in to help. No one was killed.
THREE RESCUED
Shortly after Saturday’s accident, helicopter crews quickly
used litter baskets and motorized winches to rescue three
sailors, said Levi Read, a U.S. Coast Guard spokesman.
The rescuers also recovered the body of Marc Kasanin, 46, of
Belvedere, California, who was identified late on Sunday in a
release from the San Francisco Yacht Club, where the Low Speed
Chase was based.
Coast Guard and Air National Guard aircraft and ships
blanketed a search area measuring 15 by 30 miles (24 by 48 km)
to no avail.
According to the yacht club, the missing California sailors
were Alexis Busch of Larkspur; Alan Cahill of Tiburon; Jordan
Fromm, 25, of Kentville; and an additional crew member whose
identity was being withheld because his family had yet to be
notified.
The Farallones Full Crews Race was first held in 1907, and
the accident was a major blow to the 1,400-member San Francisco
Yacht Club, known as the oldest yachting club on the West Coast.
The club, founded in 1869, held a private vigil on Sunday.
Read had earlier said the prospects for surviving frigid
ocean waters or holding onto the rocky shoals and cliffs of the
Farallones depended on the missing sailors’ physical fitness,
size and clothing.
“The people who were rescued had on cold-weather gear and
inflatable life vests,” he said.
Ed Lynch, the yacht club’s director, said the three rescued
sailors were “all pretty shaken up” and taken to San Francisco
General Hospital. Two were treated and released on Saturday and
one remained hospitalized on Sunday with a fractured leg.
“This was an experienced crew who raced together often,”
Lynch said. “The sailing community is tight-knit, and this is
being felt around the world. This is just a terrible tragedy for
everyone.”
(Editing by Cynthia Johnston)
