Officials are speculating that a fishing line is clue to why a Danish sailor went missing from his empty sailing boat off the coast of Bahamas. US Coast Guard search and rescue coordinators at Sector Miami have suspended week long search efforts for Danish citizen Peer Steenburg, the master of the 36-foot sailing vessel Holo Ki Ki, missing since Sunday from his sailboat discovered empty off the Bahamas.

A local boater contacted search and rescue coordinators at Coast Guard Sector Miami Sunday requesting permission to board the unmanned sailing vessel Holo Ki Ki about 20 miles north of West End, Bahamas.

Once aboard the Holo Ki Ki, he reported the vessel was empty but evidence aboard the vessel confirmed it had been recently occupied.

Though empty, nothing appeared amiss. Steenburg's Danish passport was on board. A fishing line could be a clue to his disappearance, Snisky said.

Bahamian officials are reviewing reports that the line had tangled in the sailboat's propeller, leading to speculation Steenburg may have dived in to clear it and somehow become injured or otherwise swept away from the boat. The Gulf Stream could have swiftly carried him north.

'He could have looked over the boat and could have been thrown over,' Snisky said. 'It could have been a combination of things.'

Later that afternoon the owner of Holo Ki Ki contacted the USCG to report he had hired Steenburg to transport the sailing vessel from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to the Netherlands.

'Our thoughts and condolences are with family and friends who knew Peer Steenburg at this time,' Petty Officer 1st Class Jennifer Johnson, a Coast Guard public affairs specialist in Miami, said in the statement.

Crews from the Air Station Miami, a HH-60 Jayhawk helicopter a and a C-130 Hercules crew from Clearwater, an HH-65 helicopter crew from the Royal English Airship Lars Bay and crews from the Bahamas Air Sea Rescue Association had exhausted a 628 square mile search area since Steenburg was reported unaccounted for at 9:30 a.m. Sunday.

Footnote: While searching for the missing sailor, some searchers made a grisley discovery. A dive boat found an overturned motorboat with four bodies in the water beside the boat, still tethered. One had been partly eaten by sharks, which were still circling while the divers investigated, keeping the sharks at bay with a speargun. While investigations are still taking place, it is suspected the boaters, who had not been reported missing, were engaged in illegal activities.

by Sun-Sentinel.com/Sail-World

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