Bodies left aboard wreck

The bodies of neighbours Bruce Guy and Phil Skeggs were strapped into their bunks yesterday and left on their storm-wrecked yacht in the mountainous seas of Bass Strait.

The Tasmanian sailors died when Guy's boat rolled twice and snapped its mast like a matchstick - one of the growing number of yachts disabled in the worst Sydney-Hobart race in history.

Their seven crewmen on board Business Post Naiad were winched to safety by helicopter yesterday morning and taken to Mallacoota, in Victoria.

Rescuers decided it was too dangerous to lift the dead men from the boat, so they abandoned the yacht, leaving a radio tracking device on board.

Skeggs, a 34-year-old father of two children, drowned when he could not extricate himself from a safety harness as the 13m yacht capsized.

Guy, who had sailed in two other Sydney-Hobarts, had a fatal heart attack.

The men were neighbours in Launceston and had been friends and sailing partners for five years.

They had decided to enter the Sydney-Hobart after winning the Tasmania Three-Peaks race at Easter. Skeggs' father, Joseph, last night described his son as "a pretty good survivor" and could not believe the news of the tragedy.

"He was a big lump of a fellow, but fit - a good swimmer and diver," he said.

"With the way the seas were, it doesn't matter how good you were. It's just one of those things."

The boat, designed by Bruce Farr, was built in Auckland in 1994 for New Zealand sailing veteran Ian Gibbs.

It was originally known as Swuzzlebubble IV and sailed for New Zealand in the Admiral's Cup.