How can two 50 footers collide in broad daylight, sunny conditions, 14 kts wind, relatively flat seas, and apparantly just a few hundred yards from the Moorings base? There're no FCFS mooring balls to be racing to!
3rd photo shows a Voyage cat nearby with its mainsail partially lowered.
Not to speculate, but I can picture the Moorings cat just departing the base midday as it starts a weeklong charter, while the Voyage cat is tacking up the SFD and comes into Baughers Bay on starboard tack with visibility partially obscured by the genoa. The Moorings boat is idling forward as it starts to raise its mainsail - the crew is all looking up at the lazy jacks and battens and no is scanning for boats as it gets into the Voyage cat skipper's blind zone (and who has no one posted on his portside as lookout). Boom!
Hope the lessons-learned from the accident report get shared.
I feel very bad for the owners (if they were not onboard) as they will be stuck with a lot of the costs.
Since the boat was a Moorings boat the owners should be fine. They will receive 100% of the value of the purchase price since the boat is under 1 year old. If repairable they will be fully paid every month during repairs. I suspect the boat will be repaired because they practically have a Leapard factory set up next to the Moorings still fixing IRMA boats.
