The post-mortem of 36-year-old James Meaby, the first of three yachtsmen whose bodies were discovered last week off the Isle of Wight, has revealed he died of drowning and hypothermia. He had been wearing a lifejacket.

Mr Meaby set sail from Bembridge a week last Sunday with friends Rupert Saunders, 36, and Jason Downer, 35, on a Sailfish 25, Ouzo. The men were heading for a regatta in Dartmouth when it’s thought they collided with a ship. No Mayday was heard and the wreckage has not been found.

Police investigated the hull of P&O ferry Pride of Bilbao at 5pm yesterday when it docked at Portsmouth. They have also taken the ship’s voyage data recorder, which records communications on the bridge as well as the ship’s track, radar plots, speed, engine controls and other information.

‘We’ve made it clear that this ship is one of many we are investigating which was in the area on the Sunday night and the early hours of Monday,’ said a spokesman from Isle of Wight Police. ‘We’re looking at a wide area because we don’t know where the Ouzo was when she was lost.’

The causes of death of the other two yachtsmen, whose bodies were found on Wednesday 23 August, 10 miles west of where Mr Meaby was recovered, have not yet been released.