Masteka 2 Stranded at Sea!

At around 5am this morning, the $20 million superyacht Masteka 2 sent an SOS off the NSW with the Carnival Spirit cruise liner racing to the area to assist the frightened crew.

Two cruise ships had to divert from their course earlier today and a rescue plane quickly travelled from Brisbane after the superyacht had lost the control of steering and started taking on water east of Port Macquarie.

At the current time of the drama unfolding, there were no paying passengers, who normally, would be paying $3000 an hour.

                              

AMSA spokesman Sam Cardwell said the agency had gone to attend the aid of the 37-metre Masteka 2 after the emergency beacons were detected early hours of the morning. Cardwell said the yacht had six crew members on board and was roughly 260 kilometres east of Port Macquarie. According to AMSA, the leak that had caused to take on the water had been repaired after 2 crew members had been rescued. These were 2 female crew members that were retrieved by a fast-boat that was launched from the Carnival Spirit cruise ship. The 2 women were in good health and said they will continue with the cruise ship to New Caledonia. The other 4 crew members were also not injured and chose to stay on board to help with the repair of the vessel.

                                

Mr Cardwell said the yacht would remain where it was overnight until a tugboat could take it to safe harbour tomorrow. The tugboat is expected to reach the yacht around tomorrow afternoon.

“They think they’ve got the vessel under control and stable, they’ve managed to stem the leak,” he said. “The Carnival Spirit is going to remain nearby just in case they need to provide any assistance.”

He said the incident illustrated the importance of having a registered emergency beacon for everyone going out to sea.

“The super yacht had two emergency beacons on board that were both registered with AMSA,” he said.

“That meant when they set off the beacons we not only got a position of where they were and that they were in distress, but we also got information about exactly what sort of vessel it was and what the emergency contacts were.”

“So we could get in contact with them straight away and work out what the distress was.”