Team Philips - more wreckage found

Starboard hull spotted off southern Iceland

Following the discovery of one of the Team Philips' bow sections yesterday, another substantially larger piece of this catamaran jigsaw puzzle, it has transpired, was discovered more than 800 miles away in southern Iceland last weekend.

Those walking along the sea front of the 4,500 strong hamlet on the Vestmannaeyjar (Westmann) Islands last Sunday were distracted from the view of the famous killer whale that resides there. Some way out to sea a long, flat object was just visible in the waves. A boat was sent out to investigate and discovered a slender hull lying on its side with approximately 1m protruding from the water.

With the www.teamphilips.com website address along the hull there was little room for doubt that the wreckage had come from Pete Goss' radical 120ft catamaran, abandoned mid-Atlantic in December. The hull was towed into the harbour were it is currently lying. Descriptions of it indicate that it is the starboard hull.

"The bow is broken, but not much," Svenfon Halldor, of the Vestmannaeyjar police told madforsailing (thankfully in English...). "There is no sign of the mast." Halldor said they had been in contact with Pete Goss by email, but no decision had been made about what to do with the hull.

It has been five and a half months since Team Philips began to break up and was abandoned, but the most extraordinary fact about the two pieces of wreckage that have turned up is how far apart they are. This indicates that Team Philips possibly broke up terminally reasonably soon after the crew abandoned her and was not charging around the sea like some hot rod Marie Celeste for very long.

It also proves that there are some very strange currents at work in that area of the Atlantic. Team Philips was abandoned to the west of Ireland and considering the general north-easterly set, the wreckage should have ended up either washing ashore on the Hebrides, Norway or going up into the Bering Sea.

Parts of Team Philips that are still unaccounted for include her two cross beams, the rest of the port hull and, in particular, her two giant wingmasts.