Pod Insights Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries 135. How Did This Yacht Crew Vanish Into Thin Air? The Kaz II Disappearance // DARK SUMMER VOL. 2 About this episode The idea of a “Ghost ship” -- a ship that is floating completely off course with its crew mysteriously gone or dead, has become more ridiculous over the years. Sure, maybe back in the day, with a lack of GPS tracking and communication a whole crew could vanish, but that could never happen today. Right?
The Kaz II which has been coined “The Ghost Yacht,” perhaps a more modern version of a ghost ship, and the fate of those three men—Derek Batten, James Tunstead, and Peter Tunstead—still remains a mystery to this day.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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2:04 Kaelyn Moore? There's a story that's been told amongst sailors for nearly 100 years, in pubs around the world, and each time I hear it, it chills me to the bone. The story goes that in 1947, a US ship named the Silver Star was out by the Solomon Islands, just off the coast of Northwest Australia, when all of a sudden, their electric telegraph started going crazy. Someone was trying to contact them. But as the operator translated the Morse code coming in, he went pale.
2:35 Speaker 02 SOS from Urang Madan. We float. All officers, including the captain, dead in chart room and on the bridge. Probably whole of crew dead.
2:45 Kaelyn Moore? The operator desperately tried asking the ship for its location, but all communication had gone silent. As quickly as the message had come in, the ship was lost, until one final message burst through.
2:58 Speaker 02 I die.
3:00 Kaelyn Moore? And then everything went quiet.
3:03 Kaelyn Moore? For the next three days, the ship searched the water for the distressed Urang Madan, but nothing was ever found. Not a shred of debris, there was no other attempts at communication, and the crew started wondering if they had dreamed the whole thing. But then, one morning, a heavy fog rolled in seemingly out of nowhere. The kind where it's hard to see your own hand in front of your face. Through the dense fog, one of the crew members spotted an eerily silent ship bobbing gently on the ocean. Sprawled across the side read two words that froze the sailors in place. Urang Madan. They called out, asking if the crew inside needed any help, but no one ever responded.
3:45 Kaelyn Moore? Strange, since the ship seemed to be in perfect condition, no signs of damage. So the crew did something they would come to regret for the rest of their lives. They boarded the ship.
3:58 Kaelyn Moore? At first, it seemed completely empty. There was no sign of life anywhere. They called out for the missing crew, but no one ever came to greet them. As the men walked up the halls of the ship, however, the strangeness of the scene really started unfolding. It started in the dining area. Meals looked like they had been half-finished. Cups of water were sitting there, still full. In the sleeping quarters, clothes had been pulled from drawers, like someone was in the middle of getting dressed. There didn't seem to be any urgency to the way that things were left, though. It was simply like the crew had vanished in the middle of an otherwise normal day.
4:39 Kaelyn Moore? That is, until they went down to the engine room. It was the stench that led them down to the belly of the ship. And from under the door, it seemed like there was a lone candle flickering inside. Again, someone called out to see if anyone was there, but no answer. Just the creaks of the rocking ship. One brave soul pushed on the wooden door, which creaked open, revealing the horror that was inside. Spread across the floor was the crew of the Urang Madan. At least forty men, all laying on their backs. But it was their faces that really horrified the men who found them. Their faces were completely frozen with looks of terror,
5:23 Kaelyn Moore? their glossy eyes wide open and their mouths all gaping in silent screams. The bodies had no injuries, though. None of their uniforms had been torn. There was no clear indicator as to what happened on that ship. And it's remained a mystery to this day. As the ship was about to be towed by the Silver Star, it burst into flames and had to be left out on the sea, where it eventually sank beneath the waves.
5:52 Kaelyn Moore? Once the crew of the Silver Star made it ashore, the story started to spread like wildfire, so much so that newspapers began picking it up. First a Dutch paper, then American papers, each one telling a slightly different version of the tale. Eventually historians looked into it, and they could never find any record of a ship called the Urang Madan. And the story has officially been classified as an urban legend. As a result, the idea of a ghost ship, that is, a ship that's floating completely off course with its crew mysteriously gone or dead, has become more ridiculous over the years. Sure, maybe back in the day,
6:34 Kaelyn Moore? with a lack of GPS tracking and communication devices, a whole crew could vanish. They could die onboard without anyone knowing how. But that could never happen today, right? This is just an urban legend. Well, in 2007, a man named Gavin Howland, the skipper for a commercial fishing vessel in Australia, was sailing on his own boat. It was a beautiful sunny day. The ocean was gently rocking the boat back and forth when Howland noticed up ahead, there was another boat, a 12-meter-long catamaran drifting along in the water aimlessly. Howland watched as it started veering into the shallow waters nearby, and it seemed that none of the crew members
7:19 Kaelyn Moore? were trying to direct it away from the rocks. Now normally, Howland had a rule about getting too close to other boats, but he felt like he needed to do something. He broke his own rule, and he moved a little closer. And as he got within 50 meters of the unknown vessel, things became even stranger. Since the ship was drifting into shallow waters, he had expected to see its crew working to direct it back into the deeper water. But he didn't see anyone on the deck. Okay, maybe they were just in the ship's cabin. Perhaps they didn't realize where they were drifting, and he needed to alert them. So he navigated his boat close enough to be able to see
8:01 Kaelyn Moore? that the word "Kaz 2" was written on the side. He peered in through the cabin windows, and that's when he started to get a really bad feeling. Not only was there no one on this ship... But it looked like the small crew had just gotten up and left. The table was neatly set for a meal and had a newspaper splayed out on it. It wasn't like this catamaran had been thrown around. And yet, no one was on board. And so the question became, where did they go? Welcome to Heart Starts Pounding, our final installment in our Dark Summer series.
8:42 Kaelyn Moore? Today, we are going to be talking about a modern day ghost ship. Now, maybe you've heard of the Mary Celeste, which was a ship found at sea in 1872 with no signs of a crew. Or maybe you listened to our episode about the Great Lake Mysteries, where I told you the tale of the Rosebel Schooner, another boat that was found destroyed with no sign of a crew anywhere. These all feel like relics of the past, like something that could never happen today. But this kind of thing does happen, and I want to tell you a story today of a boat where, despite having a GPS tracker, despite having radios to call in for emergencies, the crew vanished without a trace, and it's a lingering mystery to this day.
9:26 Kaelyn Moore? But before we dive in, real quick, since it's the last week of Dark Summer, it is also the last week to get your very own Dark Summer, Volume Two, tea from the Heart Starts Pounding shop. It will be gone forever at the end of August. So if you want yours, make sure you grab it now. And remember, patrons get 10% off, and that's 20% off for the High Council. And Abba's subscribers, listen to the end of today's episode to figure out how to get 10% off of your order. And also, shout out to everyone who has picked up merch since we launched the new store. That includes listener Kelly, who says she's been here since the first five episodes. That's incredible. She says she's loved every moment. Well, thank you, Kelly. That means a lot. And also, thank you to Callie, who works at a nursing home, and she says she loves
10:10 Kaelyn Moore? listening at work, and she and her coworkers are pretty sure that the nursing home is haunted. I'm here to tell you it most definitely is. Also, so is the Rogue Detecting Society headquarters, where I tell you these stories. At least it's haunted by jinx, isn't that right? And that, to me, feels like the perfect transition to keep talking about ghost ships. So let's get back to it.
10:32 Kaelyn Moore? It was Easter weekend 2007 in Airleigh Beach, Australia, in the northwest of Queensland. Summer would have been wrapping up in the southern hemisphere and fall would be settling in. In Perth, the weather would still be nice, more summery than wintry, somewhere in the 70s Fahrenheit during the day or low 20s Celsius. And that weekend, a group was gathered for a festive send-off party for the crew of the Kaz II before they set sail on the trip of a lifetime. Three men were taking off on a pretty ambitious journey. It was going to be a six to eight week trip from Airleigh Beach, Queensland, all the way around the continent to southwestern Australia, just south of Perth.
11:13 Kaelyn Moore? The whole trip was going to be somewhere around 2,500 nautical miles. The three-man crew of the Kaz II, a 12-meter or 32-foot-long catamaran powered by an engine, was made up of 56-year-old Dez Batten, who was the owner of the ship. He was the most experienced sailor and he would serve as the ship's skipper. There was also 69-year-old Peter Tunstead and Peter's brother, 63-year-old Jim Tunstead. They were relatively inexperienced sailors. The three men were all neighbors and had been friends for a while. Now, originally, this trip was going to be for Dez and his wife Jennifer, just the two of them. But they changed their minds and decided that only Dez would go and Jennifer would stay at home.
11:58 Kaelyn Moore? It was almost a strange omen, but Jennifer had the scary thought before the trip that something might happen to Dez and then she would be left to man the ship on her own. And it just wasn't something that she was prepared to do. Not an ideal situation for either of them, so it was decided that Dez should just go with his two friends. Now, the three men knew that this trip was a huge undertaking and they had meticulously planned their sailing route and all of their stops and ports along the way. They weren't leaving anything up to a game time decision or chance. The men had all planned to make daily stops at different harbors along the way to avoid sailing at night.
12:38 Kaelyn Moore? Some would say they were being too cautious, but their approach was always to put safety first. And this safety above all else motto is the reason that they actually delayed the trip. They had originally decided to start their journey on April 14th, a day before they actually ended up leaving. But that day, when they started up the catamaran, the GPS wasn't working. The men spent some time trying to figure out exactly what the issue was. And they eventually realized that it was just due to a human error rather than any technical issue with the equipment or software. And it was going to be a pretty easy fix.
13:15 Kaelyn Moore? So by the time they left the following day, it's believed that their GPS system was in perfect working condition. And on the morning of April 15th, just as the sun was coming up, they set sail for what was promised to be the trip of a lifetime. That day, at least according to their schedule, their first planned stop was up the coast near Eyre. They were going to head up the Witson Day Passage, go around George Point and Gloucester Island, past Bowen, before then landing close to the town of Eyre. It should take them the entire day to get there if they moved quickly, but it was important to make good headway the first day so that they would stay on schedule.
13:59 Kaelyn Moore? And so Jennifer waved Dez off and told him to be safe. And I wonder if she thought about that feeling she had, the feeling that something could go wrong. At 6:45 PM that night, a volunteer radio operator named Ivan Ormez was sitting at his desk in his bedroom, waiting by his radio for any incoming messages from vessels at sea. Conditions that day had been relatively calm and not many people had reached out at all during the past few hours. Ivan had just got up to leave to meet a friend for a drink when all of a sudden, his radio crackled to life.
14:38 Speaker 02 This is the CAS2, reporting its location as near George Point. Over.
14:42 Kaelyn Moore? Now, to you and me, this sounds like a totally normal message. It was one of the men on the CAS2 making a quick note of the boat's location for logging in accordance with safety standards. But the location that they gave was nowhere near where they should have been that day. George Point would have only taken them about two and a half hours to travel to. It was one of the first locations that the group would have passed that day on their way to air. But this call came in 11 hours after they left their point of origin, a full day of sailing later. They had so meticulously planned their route that it didn't make any sense for them to be that far behind. Even if they took their time making their way to
15:24 Kaelyn Moore? the first stop, I mean, the men had mentioned that they maybe wanted to do some fishing during their journey. They still should have been much further along by that point. But maybe tomorrow, they would make up for lost time. Maybe then they would send a GPS update that they were back on course. Well, stranger yet, the George Point transmission would be the last time anyone made contact with the CAS2. And the mystery of the boat was about to get a whole lot stranger.
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17:00 Kaelyn Moore? Three days after the strange transmission came in, a coast watch surveillance aircraft operated by Australian Customs Services, or ACS, noticed a small white boat drifting aimlessly in the sea, up near the Great Barrier Reef, about 161 kilometers, or 100 miles off of the coast of Australia. It was the CAS-2, and it caught the aircraft operator's eye because he noticed the water the boat was drifting into was pretty shallow and way too rocky for a boat of its size to be sailing through. Stranger yet, the catamaran seemed to be in near-perfect condition, save for one element. The operator could see that the boat had a sail
17:44 Kaelyn Moore? that was completely shredded and torn up. He squinted his eyes to see if anyone on the ship was struggling, if he should make a call for help, but he didn't see any of the crew members, or really, any other sign of life at all. And so, he decided that he should call it into officials. And he said that he believed the crew of this catamaran may be in distress. A man named Senior Constable Jason Jesse from Townsville Water Police was the one who took the call. Now, when he heard this, he wasn't ready to say just yet whether or not anyone on board was in peril, but he still wanted someone to make direct contact with the ship. So, he had a few officers radio the catamaran, though they didn't get a response back.
18:28 Kaelyn Moore? So, the next course of action was to go find the boat and try to talk to the crew directly. Now, for whatever reason, it took two days to reach the catamaran, potentially because it had continued to drift from where it was first spotted. And now, authorities were getting worried that something might be really wrong. The CAS-2 appeared to be, quote, "dead in the water." This likely meant that those on board were in serious distress. So, investigators moved quickly now as they made their way towards the boat. What they saw, as they climbed aboard, was very eerie. Yes, one sail was shredded, like the coast watch had mentioned,
19:10 Kaelyn Moore? but the exterior, aside from that, was in pristine condition. There were no dings, there was no water or debris on the deck, just a beautiful and well-kept, gleaming white catamaran.
19:25 Kaelyn Moore? As investigators approached, they could hear the eerie sound of the engine idling.
19:32 Kaelyn Moore? It had been set into neutral, but it was still running, even though there was no one they could see piloting the ship. And despite no obvious signs of life, there were clues that the crew had recently been there. On the deck, there were three piles of clothes and towels. There was even a blue coffee cup still standing upright on the deck. It was such a strange contrast to the shredded sail. Once the authorities went inside of the ship's cabin, the scene became even more confusing than that. Everything was in its exact right place. There was no mess, there was no destruction. As far as anyone could tell, all of the life jackets were in their rightful places.
20:16 Kaelyn Moore? The rescue boats were still onboard, too. The GPS system and the radio were completely functional, meaning that no one had radioed for help at any point, though they had the ability to if they needed it. Investigators then made their way into the ship's kitchen and eating area, or the galley, as it's called. Still, nothing was out of place. There was not a single sign of distress. Laptops were open on the table. Food and utensils were set. There was even a copy of the Sunday paper laid out as if someone had been in the middle of reading it. Their beds had clearly been slept in, but nothing to suggest anything had happened while they were sleeping. Where had these men gone?
21:00 Kaelyn Moore? At first, the shredded sail may have indicated they hit a rough patch of weather and were thrown off the ship, perhaps. But then why was everything else inside of the boat so neat? So, authorities had to wonder, was there any foul play involved? Now, there was no blood in the cabin or sign of distress. They doubted that someone had entered the boat and harmed the men. Did one of them turn against the others? But if that was the case, then where did he go? And that's when an investigator spotted something sitting amongst the other items that were left out: a video camera. He went over and picked it up so that it could be
21:41 Kaelyn Moore? examined once they got to land. Maybe there would be more answers on that camera, because just looking at this scene, it was not clear at all what happened on board. The authorities then towed the boat back to the shore so they could conduct a forensic search. They brought it to Townsville, which was just west of their first stop on the trip, AIR. Now, there was some difficulty bringing the boat to the dock, which caused the CAS-2 to be knocked about in the water a bit. And when they did finally get it docked and they re-boarded to examine it again, they noticed that a few of the items that were around the boat had fallen out of place and onto the ground. There was more disruption to the state of the catamaran from towing it back to land than there was during whatever
22:26 Kaelyn Moore? happened before the men disappeared. But once they got the CAS-2 docked on April 21st, they were able to do a little bit more thorough of an investigation. And one of the first things they accessed was the onboard GPS system. And that told them a pretty interesting story. So the GPS data had shown that the boat had taken off from Airly Beach and headed northwest, just as planned. But by the afternoon that day, it seemed to be completely adrift. This indicated that whatever occurred onboard had maybe happened within just a few hours of the men's departure. This was also corroborated by where the boat was found, because they had deviated from the route that they had so
23:10 Kaelyn Moore? carefully and exactly set. After two or three days, the boat should have made it to Townsville, which was northwest of AIR. But when the boat was found an entire week after it had set sail, it was 80 nautical miles short of that location and 100 nautical miles out to sea. Well, that's when one of the investigators brought out the video camera, thinking that maybe it could hold an important clue. The footage on the camera is grainy in that early 2000s nostalgic way. It seems to have been taken by Jim because he's the only one not shown in the footage. The timestamp in the lower corner reads April 15th, 10:05 a.m., not long after the men had departed.
23:54 Kaelyn Moore? Dez is steering the boat while Peter was sitting on the aft stairway fishing. So maybe the men really did lose track of time fishing that day, and that was the reason they didn't make it very far. The camera at one point pans 360 degrees and islands can be seen in the distance, indicating that the men weren't that far off the coast. Certainly not 120 kilometers. A long white rope was trailing behind them, and fenders could be seen hanging from safety rails on either side. Investigators also noticed that the engine was not on during this filming. But the boat was also starting to get tossed around a little by some choppy water, indicating that there was a storm brewing somewhere. None of the men were wearing life jackets in the video.
24:39 Kaelyn Moore? And one thing that investigators really picked up on is that Peter's shirt and glasses were actually sitting in a different area than they were later found in. Now, this could mean a variety of things. For one, it could mean that he simply moved them. But it also could indicate that a few of the things on the boat were tossed around, potentially from choppy water. It was something, but it wasn't an answer as to what happened or where the men might be. It also was so incredibly creepy and unsettling. Even with the chance that some of Peter's things got tossed around, everything else on the boat was still seemingly in its right place. The pile of folded clothes on the deck, the meal set out at the kitchen table, a coffee mug still standing upright.
25:24 Kaelyn Moore? It was as if the entire crew of the CAS 2 disappeared into thin air.
25:31 Kaelyn Moore? With three men missing and no idea what happened to them, authorities started two simultaneous investigations. One was the search for Dez, Jim, and Peter. Investigators were skeptical that they would be found alive out in the ocean, but they still wanted to do a thorough search in case it brought them any answers. The second investigation was into figuring out how and why they disappeared. The most pressing issue, of course, was finding the men. The search and rescue operations were pretty extensive. To start, the Navy deployed three Dorys and a mother craft, which means three smaller boats and one much bigger boat. After that began a full-scale search that involved the volunteer rescue units from three towns and the Townsville Coast Guard.
26:15 Kaelyn Moore? By air, they sent out helicopters and aircraft that had infrared technology to look for any sign of the men. On land, they employed on-the-ground searches. At sea, they deployed nine aircraft to search over the water and along the shoreline, and two commercial vessels to search the coral reefs. They were seriously leaving no stone unturned. As the days passed without any success, the search and rescue efforts were eventually scaled down. They consulted Dr. Paul Luckin, who was a survival time expert. He would be able to tell the authorities the likelihood of whether or not the men were still alive. They provided him with all of the information they had at this point, including how long it had been since they found the empty boat.
26:58 Kaelyn Moore? Now, it had been five days since the unmanned boat had first been spotted. Five days was an incredibly long time to be stranded in the ocean, an impossible amount of time even, especially without life jackets. And not to mention, it looked like whatever happened occurred on the first day that the men were out there, which was three days prior to the boat being found. The opinion Dr. Luckin formed was not a very hopeful one. He determined, to the best of his ability with the information he had, that if the men never made it to land, they were most likely thrown into the water and they would no longer be alive. I mean, eight days treading water seems impossible. Hoping that the men had made it ashore,
27:41 Kaelyn Moore? the remaining search and rescue efforts would be isolated to a land search. They officially ended any attempts of finding the men in the water. Hopefully, they somehow made it to dry land, or they docked and disembarked without anchoring the boat, which caused it to drift back out to sea. But eventually, the land searches dwindled as well. Some of the family members thought that investigators pulled back way too soon, that they should keep looking for longer. But the authorities did not make this decision lightly. One thing they had to consider was the fact that the men would have contacted their families by now if they had survived. And Jennifer hadn't heard from Dez since the day he left. What reason would they have for not doing so? It just didn't make any sense.
28:26 Kaelyn Moore? The authorities only made the incredibly painful and disheartening decision to cut down the search when they felt that there was nothing left to be done. The search and rescue efforts for Dez, Jim, and Peter had ended in heartbreaking failure. Not only did no one find them, but they still had no idea what went wrong on that boat. But that didn't stop authorities and people in general from coming up with some of their own theories as to what happened.
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31:07 Kaelyn Moore? So I have always heard about this tea called Bigelow Constant Comment. It's been around forever and people absolutely love it. I realized I had no idea what it actually tasted like. Obviously, I had to investigate and now I'm obsessed. Constant Comment is this incredible black tea with real orange rind, cold pressed orange oil and sweet spices. The best way I can describe it is it's like Christmas in a cup, except you get to drink it all year long. Then I learned the story behind it, which made me love it even more. Constant Comment was created by Ruth Campbell Bigelow and her New York City Kitchen in 1945. She shared it with her friends and everyone kept talking about it. And all of those Constant Comments actually gave it its name. The recipe is still a Bigelow family secret over 80 years later.
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32:01 Kaelyn Moore? Now let's start with the official explanation that was given by Coroner Michael Barnes, who conducted his own inquest into what happened, which resulted in a detailed 25-page report or finding of inquest. Because Barnes felt like he knew exactly what happened to these men. He wrote in that inquest, quote, "At 10:05 a.m. on Sunday, 15th of April, they were sailing along contentedly in the vicinity of George Point." In the next hour or so, things changed dramatically. Perhaps unfortunately, they retrieved the white rope that had been trailing behind the boat and left it bundled on the foredeck adjacent to the locker it was kept in, probably dry. Something caused James to take off his t-shirt and glasses and leave them on the backseat.
32:45 Kaelyn Moore? An obvious explanation is that he or his brother Peter fell in while trying to retrieve his lure, which was found wrapped around the portside rudder, and the other went to his aid. Falling in would be easy, and getting back aboard would be nearly impossible. Dez perhaps started the motor, but he knew that he had to drop the sail before he could get back for the two men. As the boat was running square in the wind, any deviation in its heading or the wind's direction could result in an uncontrolled sail. The swinging boom could have easily knocked him overboard, and this could have well happened before he even had time to unleash and launch his life ring. A blue coffee mug found adjacent to the life ring may support this reconstruction.
33:29 Kaelyn Moore? Once the three men were in the water, there was very little chance that they could get back on the boat, as it was blown before a 15 knot wind and they struggled in lumpy seas. It would have been beyond their reach in seconds. Now, Barnes basically thought that one man fell over, another jumped in to save him, and the other one got hit by the boom of the sail and was thrown into the water as well. Before any of them knew it, they were in the water without their life jackets and the boat was drifting away. Barnes didn't see any evidence to suggest that they had been met by foul play. He didn't consider that to be a credible theory at all. But something about this explanation didn't sit right with Dez's wife, Jennifer, and she had her own response to this theory.
34:12 Kaelyn Moore? She kept insisting on how safety-conscious these men were, and how much prep went into learning all of the necessary safety precautions. She couldn't imagine Dez panicking if a crisis arose while they were on board. He would have kept a cool head and did what needed to be done to solve the problem. Remember, they ended up cancelling their first start due to GPS issues. They weren't men who took this lightly. Safety was a serious priority for them. It also didn't make sense in that scenario that they didn't use any of the life jackets or rescue equipment onboard, or radio a distress call. Every single piece of rescue gear was still on the ship by the time it was found by authorities. It also doesn't really explain why the sail was completely shredded.
34:55 Kaelyn Moore? As happens with every strange case or unsolved disappearance, family members and web sleuths come up with their own alternate theories. The first being that a rogue wave hit the boat and knocked the men into the water with no chance of getting back on. The issue with that theory is that there was no evidence of anything like that hitting the boat. Everything was still neat and tidy. There was even the mug with liquid still in it. How would a wave be big enough to knock three men overboard, but not a cup of tea? That doesn't really seem likely. Another theory is that the disappearance was actually staged by Dez, Jim, and Peter. That theory says that the men had another boat meet theirs and take them safely aboard
35:38 Kaelyn Moore? back to land without any harm coming to them. The idea is that they did this to commit life insurance fraud. This could explain why they never contacted their families afterwards, because that would blow up the whole scheme. It also maybe explains why the sail was mysteriously shredded. Perhaps one of them did that intentionally to make it look like something horrible had happened. Now, one thing that was noted by investigators and seen in photos taken of the ship is that the boat's fenders had been thrown over the side. Now, this is usually done when another boat is wanting to attach to yours. It's a little safety barrier to put in between the two boats. For some people, that helps solidify the theory that another boat approached theirs and they were able to get on and leave.
36:22 Kaelyn Moore? However, many sailors have explained that this doesn't necessarily mean anything. Oftentimes, boats will leave their fenders deployed even if they don't need to dock another boat to theirs. So with that said, there's not really concrete evidence to support this claim of insurance fraud or any other scheme having been carried out by the men. Perhaps the scariest potential theory is piracy. The men were sailing along with everything going smoothly. They stopped a fish, they had a meal, they didn't have a care in the world, and then out of nowhere, another boat sailed up alongside theirs. Now, there have been reports of pirates in eastern Australian waters, but with this theory, along with all the others, there isn't any credible evidence or reports of pirates
37:06 Kaelyn Moore? in the area that would make this a real, actual theory. And that brings me to the last theory that people had. One that many feel like is the most realistic. And that's a theory that the boat actually got stuck on a sandbar close to George Point sometime after their final radio message was relayed around 6:45 PM. The men maybe quickly got off to push it off of the sandbar, but then it started floating away too quickly to jump back on. They were left stranded before drowning at some point, either because they tried to swim out to the boat or because the tide rose and the sandbar disappeared. But that still leaves so many lingering questions. By that point, the boat was already floating aimlessly in the water.
37:49 Kaelyn Moore? And if Jennifer was right, if they really were so focused on safety, then why didn't they use their life jackets or take them with them when they got off the boat? In the end, ultimately, the family seemed to have accepted coroner Michael Barnes' interpretation of events, that the men fell overboard and were not able to get themselves back onto the ship. But one thing that's interesting about Michael Barnes' interpretation is he believes that this happened almost immediately after the footage was taken of the men on the boat fishing. See, Barnes believes that when the boat started drifting aimlessly in the early afternoon, the men were already off the boat. But he doesn't actually take into account the 6:45 PM call that the men made, saying that they were at George Point.
38:33 Kaelyn Moore? Barnes doesn't believe that that's been appropriately corroborated by authorities and that it's all hearsay. But the volunteer radio operator who received that call swore that it happened. He swore it was from the CAS 2 at 6:45 PM. And if that's the case, that throws off Michael Barnes' entire timeline. Now, the men's families have ultimately expressed feelings like they had failed the men, but they knew that they had done everything possible that could have been done. The family has made it so incredibly clear how much these men have prioritized safety, which so sharply stood in opposition to their inexplicable disappearance, was probably impossible to reconcile those conflicts in logic.
39:17 Kaelyn Moore? Regardless of which theory you guys agree with, there are still so many unanswered questions like, why hadn't the men grabbed the life vests? Why had the men deviated from their meticulously planned route? My biggest one is why was the sail shredded? No one's really even been able to answer that so far. And another one that I can't stop thinking about is why was the boat floating aimlessly for so long before that last GPS call came in? The CAS 2 has been coined the ghost yacht, perhaps a more modern version of a ghost ship. And the fate of those three men, Des Batten, James Tunstead, and Peter Tunstead, still remains a mystery to this day. But this all begs the question, are ghost ships just a
40:02 Kaelyn Moore? thing of the past, an urban legend? And if so, how is this something that still happens? And it makes me wonder if years down the road, when the investigators who worked on this case are telling their friends about it, or their grandkids, will it also just be treated like an urban legend because it feels so unbelievable? But what do you guys think? I love hearing your thoughts, your theories, your feedback. Anywhere you listen, you can write those on Spotify, Instagram, or YouTube. I check all the comments. I'm always curious to hear what you guys think about things. And that really wraps up our Dark Summer series this year. Thank you so much for joining me every episode of Dark
40:44 Kaelyn Moore? Summer this season. I've had such a blast making all of this programming for you guys. Summer has seriously been, growing up, the time that I was able to explore my dark curiosity the most. So I love being able to pay homage to that and come up with programming that really dives into our dark curiosities as a community. So thank you so much. And I will add, we only have one more month until we dive straight into spooky season. And boy, oh, boy, do I have some programming planned for you all. It technically is spooky season every month here at Heart Starts Pounding, but really, this spooky season's gonna be spooky season. So buckle up. We're gonna head straight into that. So I hope you join me here next week when we make a soft transition from summer to fall with the help of National
41:27 Kaelyn Moore? Park After Dark. We're gonna be taking a look at some more terrifying, true camping and hiking stories. I really hope you join me then. Thank you so much, and I'll catch you here next week. And until then, stay curious.
41:45 Kaelyn Moore? Heart Starts Pounding is written and produced by me, Kayla Moore. Heart Starts Pounding is also produced by Matt Brown. Our associate producer is Juno Hobbs. Additional research and writing by Megan Gilbert. Sound design and mix by Peachtree Sound. Special thanks to Travis Dunlap, Grayson Jurnian, the team at WME, and Ben Jaffe. Have a heart pounding story or a case request? Check out heartstarts pounding.com. This episode is brought to you by our partner, Vistaprint. If you run a small business, you know that there's a moment where you go from just doing the thing you love to realizing you need stuff, like physical stuff. Custom merch for an event, branded apparel for your team, business cards that actually look professional? That was definitely me with Heart Starts Pounding. What started as a podcast I made in my closet turned into something that had merch, had
42:28 Kaelyn Moore? mugs, had stickers, had all of this stuff that I needed to get made. And Vistaprint made it so much less overwhelming. They are a true print expert. Premium, quality products, fast turnaround, and design tools that actually make sense. I actually got custom mugs made from Vistaprint and they are gorgeous and very, very good quality. The quality feels expensive without having an expensive price tag. There's a reason over 17 million businesses trust Vistaprint with their print needs. Vistaprint, print your possible. Right now, new customers get 20% off with code NEW20 at Vistaprint.com. That's 20% off at Vistaprint.com using code NEW20. Do you want more darkly curious stories in your life? Sign up for our Patreon for free and get access to a rotating shelf of bonus content,
43:12 Kaelyn Moore? our weekly Rogue Detecting Society newsletter, and the HSP Book Club. Paid members also get monthly bonus episodes and archive access, which I think is more than 40 episodes at this point. You also get a cool jinx sticker after your first three months. And you can check it all out with a free seven day trial. Link in the bio or go to patreon.com backslash heart starts pounding. But whatever you do, stay curious.
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