A RACING yacht feared to have sunk in the Channel with the loss of three crewmen as she made her way to a regatta is thought to have been destroyed in a hit-and-run accident with a tanker.

The bodies of three men were hauled from the water following a huge air and sea search for the missing vessel and the yachtsmen.

The coastguard said yesterday that the 27ft Ouzo might have foundered after a “catastrophic collision” — with either a big ship or a submerged container — before the crew was able to send out a mayday distress call. The alarm was raised when the body of James Meaby, who was wearing a lifejacket, was spotted in the water by a fishing boat, the Malaki, ten miles south of the Isle of Wight.

A lifeboat and a police launch were sent to the scene, south of the Nab Tower lighthouse, to recover the body at 11.15am on Tuesday.

Mr Meaby, 36, from Tooting, southwest London, was identified by his girlfriend yesterday.

Two other bodies were found yesterday evening ten miles west from Mr Meaby but a coastguard spokesman said that it was too early to confirm the identities. However, it is believed they may be skipper Rupert Saunders, 36, of Tooting, and his brother.

The coastguard spokesman said: “The bodies are going to be transferred to Portsmouth and handed over to the police.”

It is understood that the classic single-mast navy-blue-hulled fibreglass Sailfish 25 was heading to Bembridge in the Isle of Wight on Sunday in calm conditions. She was then expected to make her way to Dartmouth in Devon.

The vessel had been entered in the Port of Dartmouth Royal Regatta and her crew were expected to race today, tomorrow and Saturday. Mr Saunders had competed in her at the regatta, which is known as the Royal Dart.

Coastguard helicopters, a Nimrod aircraft from RAF Kinloss, and the warships HMS Cattistock and HMS Ledbury scoured the Channel in the hope of finding the missing men, believed to work in the City. A post-mortem examination was being carried out on Mr Meaby, who is thought to have been in the water for about 24 hours when his body was discovered.

Brian Taylor, of Solent coastguard, said: “We can only make the assumption that the missing yacht has been involved in some sort of catastrophic collision. We have no record of any messages of distress being sent out. We are looking for more bodies, flotsam and jetsam, and wreckage.”

Mark Clark, a press officer for Solent coastguard, said that there was no obvious explanation for the yacht going missing with an apparently experienced crew in relatively calm waters.

“We cannot rule out that the Ouzo has been run down by a bigger vessel,” he said. “We would have expected someone on board a larger vessel to report it, but they could have been below deck.” Mr Clark said that, had the skipper notified them of the details of their journey, the search could have been started earlier. “These experienced sailors obviously did not feel it necessary to advise the coastguard of their impending passage. This information could well have helped the coastguard to start this search much earlier if they knew that their arrival in Dartmouth hadn’t occurred.”

Barry Handley, the fisherman who discovered the body on Tuesday, said: “We headed south from the Isle of Wight (and) we saw a lifejacket floating in the sea about 400 yards from us. When we got there we saw the body.”

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