The Kaz II: The Engine Was Running, the Laptop Was Open, and Three Men Were Gone

On April twentieth, two thousand and seven, a helicopter crew spotted a white catamaran drifting off the coast of Queensland, Australia, near the Great Barrier Reef. When authorities boarded the Kaz II, they found the engine still running, a laptop powered on, the GPS and radio fully functional, and food set out on the table. Life jackets were stored in their lockers. The emergency beacon had never been activated. The small dinghy was still hoisted on the stern. Everything was in perfect working order. The three-man crew was gone. Derek Batten, Peter Tunstead, and James Tunstead had departed Airlie Beach five days earlier on the first leg of an eight-week sailing trip. A video camera found aboard showed the men laughing and fishing hours before they vanished. Peter Tunstead, sixty-nine years old and a non-swimmer, was sitting at the back of the boat with the safety rail down and no life jacket. Someone on the video remarks on threatening skies ahead. The footage ends. Within hours, all three men would be gone. A commercial fisherman saw the Kaz II drifting with a torn sail the day after departure, came within fifty metres, saw no one aboard, and did not report it. The fishing lure was found tangled in the rudder. James Tunstead's shirt and glasses were placed neatly on the seat. The state coroner concluded that one man likely fell overboard while freeing the tangled line, and the others went in trying to rescue him. The boat, still under engine power, motored away from all three. No bodies were ever recovered. The Kaz II was towed to shore, cleaned, and sold. She was not a crime scene. She was a boat that kept sailing after the men who were supposed to be sailing her fell into the Coral Sea and could not get back.