Redondo Beach sailboat destroyed, four believed dead
The four member crew of the Aegean, a Hunter 376, left Newport Beach in high spirits before colliding with a much larger vessel around 1:30 a.m on Saturday. Photo by Susan Hoffman Under gloomy, gray skies, the usually rowdy maritime crowd celebrating the end of the annual Newport Beach-to-Ensenada regatta spent a moment of silence on Sunday to remember four lost sailors who vanished during the race. The awards ceremony, which took place in Ensenada, Baja California, was a subdued affair attended by many who knew the missing men. The four crewmen — Joseph Stewart, 64, William Johnson, 57, Kevin Rudolph, 53, and Theo Mavromatis, 49 — were aboard the Aegean, a 37-foot Hunter 376 sailboat, which investigators believe collided with a much larger vessel near Mexico’s Coronado Islands, 15 miles south of San Diego, at around 1:30 a.m. on Saturday. Their deaths marked the event’s first fatalities in its 65-year history. While three bodies were recovered, Mavromatis remains lost at sea. Around the time of the incident, the image of the Aegean vanished from an online system tracking the boats, which prompted a Coast Guard search. The 124-mile race had begun in Newport Beach on Friday…
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