Even though shipwrecks are quite regular, the Patanela’s disappearance has enough anomalies to make it a mystery.
On October 16, 1988, the Patanela, a beautiful yacht, left Fremantle, Australia for Airlie Beach, Queensland.
In addition to the owner and captain, the schooner was transporting Noreen and Ronnalee Jones.
The boat was in great shape and ideal for extended voyages.
The Patanela has sailed around the globe multiple times, including to Antarctica.
Nicol had just recently bought the yacht.
John Blissett and Michael Calvin were also on board.
They appreciated the Patanela so much that they requested Nicol for a job.
They were both striving to earn their nautical certifications by accumulating sailing hours.
Nicol agreed and crewed them.
Nicol only stayed on board for the first leg.
He left the ship in Esperance to do business.
Ronnalee Jones left for similar reasons.
The Patanela and its four passengers proceeded on their journey, radioing their location.
Until November 8, the journey seemed absolutely unremarkable.
A boat sent a message to an Overseas Telecommunications Commission radio operator about 1 a.m.
Ken Jones said the ship was 10 miles east of Botany Bay.
He remarked they seemed out of petrol.
They planned to “tack out” for a few hours before returning.
He stated that they may require help returning to Sydney harbour in the morning.
Jones sounded relaxed.
Ships often ran out of gasoline late at night.
It was all so ordinary.
It was normal until Jones phoned again an hour later.
He requested for a weather report, stating he didn’t want to go too far out before entering the harbour.
Then, for reasons no one understands, he requested for directions to Moruya, on the NSW coast.
In response, the radio operator informed Jones of a wind warning in his region.
The Patanela called again just after 2 a.m.
There was so much static on the connection that it was impossible to understand Jones.
The skipper just said “300 km south?
Is it sw?
So?
South…”
Then his voice vanished.
Those mysterious words were the Patanela’s last heard.
No one at the OTC was concerned at this time.
Many skippers would announce their arrival in Sydney Harbor, just to alter their minds and sail elsewhere without informing the shore station.
Everyone believed Jones had simply chosen to cruise straight to Airlie Beach.
Concern grew as days passed without news from the boat, particularly when Jones’ son Peter disclosed he had been unable to contact his father by ship-to-shore radio.
The Patanela was supposed to arrive at Airie Beach on November 18, but it never arrived.
A search was subsequently undertaken, but it was much too late.
After so long, the vessel may have been anywhere on or beneath the water.
The boat was not even near Sydney when Jones transmitted his final radio transmissions.
The Patanela’s disappearance was further complicated when Michael Calvin’s father told reporters he had a tense radio communication three days before the boat vanished.
“Hello, Dad,” Michael said.
Then the phone went dead.
It was also noted that the Patanela’s massive gasoline tanks were fully stocked before sailing, removing the possibility of a fuel shortage.
Was Jones’ word that the boat was out of gasoline forced upon him?
Or a coded assistance request?
No evidence pointed to a collision.
any hint of trouble.
The steel boat has multiple waterproof compartments, making it difficult to sink.
The yacht also has an emergency radio beacon.
If it was on, any passing aircraft might have picked it up.
The boat was hijacked, but it didn’t solve the main question: Where was the Patanela?
On May 9, 1989, a fisherman off the coast of Terrigal (approximately 30 miles north of Sydney) found a barnacle-covered lifebuoy.
It was named “Patanela.”
The buoy couldn’t have been in the ocean for more than a month, indicating the boat was still floating six months after it vanished.
Despite multiple “sightings” of the Patanela reported across the world, none led authorities to the missing boat.
Nobody knows what happened to the spacecraft and its four occupants.
Theories abound, as expected.
Was it sunk by a Russian spy submarine?
Or a new reef?
Was it taken over by contemporary pirates, weapons merchants, or drug runners?
The inquest investigating the disappearance yielded no answers.
No proof of a hijacking of the Patanela was uncovered.
Officials could only speculate that the Patanela was a victim of a maritime “hit-and-run” after colliding with a tanker or another big vessel.
However, they conceded that this did not explain the absence of wreckage or the skipper’s and Michael Calvin’s calls.
This tale had a terrible addendum in 2008.
A lady visiting a rural beach in Western Australia discovered a bottle.
It contains a note written by John Blissett on the Patanela on October 26, 1988, about two weeks before the ship vanished.
Read: “Hello.
We decided to offer you a free trip to the Whitsunday Islands in north Queensland, Australia.
Our ship is sailing from Fremantle, Western Australia, to Brisbane, Queensland.”
Call the number on the letter to collect your reward.
“See you soon!” the message concluded.
The Patanela’s fate remains one of Australia’s great maritime mysteries.
It’s frightening enough without adding a yacht’s name to it.
Owner Phil Waterworth picked it, thinking it was an Aboriginal term for a guardian deity.
When scientists chartering the Patanela for an expedition in 1964 performed some study, they discovered that the name literally means “Storm Spirit.”
They were all mistaken.
[“Patanela” is another term for “Devil.”]
