Search for South African sailor suspended

The search for a South African yachtsman missing on a voyage from Tauranga to Gisborne has been suspended.

Paul Janse van Rensburg, 40, has not been seen since he set sail on March 12 in his 11m yacht Tafadzwa with his dog Juanita.

Rescue Co-ordination Centre New Zealand (RCCNZ) mission co-ordinator Dave Wilson said a Royal New Zealand Airforce P3 Orion and three additional search aircraft had covered 328,000 square kilometres in 43 hours of searching over three days, without success.

The searchers used software that predicted effects of tides, currents and wind to plan the flights, and Mr Wilson said it had been an extremely thorough search.

"We have been lucky to have had excellent conditions for searching and we are confident that had the yacht been in the search area, we would have found it," he said.

The search was extended to 537km north of East Cape down to Gisborne, and 796km offshore, while the coastline between Tauranga and Gisborne had scoured twice by aircraft seeking wreckage.

Mr Wilson said the decision to suspend the search had been difficult, but it would not be resumed unless any new information came to light.

"We are obviously very disappointed that we have not found Mr van Rensburg and his yacht ... we have had to conclude there is nothing more we can do at this stage".

Mr van Rensburg was relocating to Gisborne to be closer to his girlfriend between his civil engineering projects, and his last contact was a cellphone call to her at 1.30pm on Friday.

When he failed to appear at work on Monday, she alerted authorities.

- NZPA