Despite a five-hour plane search on Tuesday that covered almost 1000 square miles of ocean, movistar, the Volvo70 that was abandoned last week, has still not been found. This was the second search that has been mounted to find the yacht.

Shore manager Campbell Field commented that continuing the search – which has been likened to trying to find a needle in a haystack – isn’t a lost cause: ‘We haven’t yet proven to anybody, least of all ourselves, whether or not the boat has sunk. The insurers would like to have the opportunity of examining the damaged areas, it is our duty to make every effort to find it, because it could be a hazard to navigation and, finally, it is a very valuable object’, he said, ‘We’ll keep looking for it as long as it makes practical sense.’

Meanwhile Russell Bowler, president of Farr Yacht Design, who designed the boat, said that finding it would be a huge help in analysing and understanding the keel failure that led the crew to abandon ship.

movistar’s shore team are now working closely together with the underwriters, who need to decide whether they wish to fund a third search.