The luxury charter superyacht Masteka 2 started getting water ingress and lost steering gear off New South Wales, Australia. The vessel was drifting 140 nautical miles off Port Macquarie, Northern Australia with six crew on board and increasing list to starboard. The yacht lost steering gear and stern compartments started flooding, but crew were unable to get control over the water ingress. The Australian Maritime Safety Agency established communication with crew and ordered cruise ship Carnival Spirit to arrive at the scene of the accident.
The passenger vessel evacuated two non-essential crew members from the yacht using their fast rescue boat. Also engineers from the cruise ship assisted to the rest crew in salvage operation and water ingress was stopped. The superyacht Masteka 2 was stabilized and under control, waiting for local authorities to dispatch tug for towing to nearest harbor.
“They think they’ve got the vessel under control and stable, they’ve managed to stem the leak”, said Australian Maritime Safety Agency spokesman, Sam Cardwell. “And now they are going to wait there until their tug boat arrives to help them back to shore which should be sometime tomorrow afternoon”, added he.
The cruise ship Carnival Spirit is going to remain nearby until arriving of the tug, just in case the yacht need any assistance. Fortunately during the accident, there were no injured people and no water pollution. The investigation for the root cause will be started after the yacht is towed to the port.
The luxury charter superyacht Masteka 2 (IMO: 9548615) has overall length of 37.00 m, moulded beam of 7.30 m and maximum draft of 2.50 m. The deadweight of the vessel is 199 DWT and the gross tonnage is 254 GRT. The yacht was built in 2009 by Kha Shing Enterprise in the shipyard in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
