The sailing race from the Golden Gate Yacht Club ended in tragedy as a Marin County boat with two sailors aboard vanished into the big waves. The body of one of them was found on shore at Moss Beach in San Mateo County on Sunday morning, but the second is still missing.

The race, a benefit for United Cerebral Palsy, began Saturday at 4 p.m. and the sailors faced treacherous conditions: 12- to 16-foot swells and high winds. The competing sailing crews had to sale their boats from the Golden Gate Yacht Club in San Francisco to a buoy about 12 miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge and back. To the end of the day, boats made it to the finish line, but the 32-foot Daisy didn’t.

Nobody knew what had happened until the following day at 10:30 a.m., when the race officials returned from the sea with debris from the missing boat. About an hour later came in the news that the corpse of one of the missing sailors was found.


"There has been some debris found, and we are sifting through it right now. We're not sure of the origin," said U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Dorian Jackson.

The debris brought back by the officials included wooden plankings, a refrigerator door and a rudder that matched descriptions of the Daisy, a white and green sailboat, The San Francisco Chronicle wrote on its Web site.

Daisy was swallowed by the waves at about 5 miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge, officials said.

The man found dead on the beach was identified as Anthony John Harrow, 72, of Larkspur.

The other sailor was Matthew Kirby Gale, a 68-year-old retired neurologist. He was the owner of the vessel. Gale’s search was suspended by the Coast Guard on Sunday night.

Details about what went wrong and caused the accident are few. Coast Guard Capt. Paul Gugg said he could only speculate on the cause of the accident, but refused to do so. He only said that it’s sailing in the open ocean is dangerous, especially in the conditions of this race.

"Racing is a thrill sport, and they went out in challenging conditions," said Gugg. "We don't know if they did anything wrong; we don't know if there was an equipment failure. It's risky and very challenging out there."