Researchers from the Ocean Research Project team accidentally stumbled upon the abandoned yacht Swan 48 in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. They noticed that the ship's sail was down, its engine was not running, and there was no one on board.

Worried that someone might be hurt, the sailors decided to check the boat to see if everything was all right. The boat appeared to be completely empty. Later, one of the sailors said that his greatest fear was finding dead bodies on board.

The crew decided to tow the boat to Bermuda, more than 1,000 kilometers away. After 47 days, they ran out of fuel, but convinced a passing freighter to stop and refuel them.

The crew kept pulling the boat, but eventually they had to cut the tow rope after it wrapped around the steering wheel and threatened to cut it off.

It turned out that the boat belonged to skipper Alan McGettigan of the Royal Irish Yacht Club. Two months earlier, he and his crewmates had been rescued by a Greek freighter during a shipwreck near Bermuda.