The 61-metre Lürssen Lunaris joined the search for survivors of the ferry MV Matui during her round-the-world voyage; her owner, his family and guests were aboard at the time. The ferry, about 15 metres long, capsized between Espiritu Santo and Ambae in northern Vanuatu on Friday 11 September. Her crew worked "over 12 hours of operations in reported rough and challenging conditions" and "rescued three individuals from the water, despite arriving approximately 24 hours after the vessel was believed to have sunk", according to Fraser, the yacht's management company.
Vanuatu's Maritime Safety Authority gave AP its final count on 18 September: 53 people on board, 14 rescued, two bodies recovered, 37 missing and presumed dead. Reports during the week put the number aboard between 45 and 55; deputy commissioner Lloyd M. Fikiasi told AP that some of those registered as missing had never boarded. The search at sea ended on 17 September.
What Lunaris did
Fraser's statement is the only account of what happened with the yacht. According to them, the yacht arrived on the scene about 24 hours after the ferry went down.
The only pick-up anyone has described in detail comes from RNZ Pacific. Arian and Talesa Tari, brother and sister, were swimming towards Santo when, in RNZ's words, "the superyacht Lunaris spotted them". They came out of the water between ten and a quarter past ten on Saturday night, 12 September, more than a day after the ferry rolled over, and were later at the Northern Provincial Hospital in Luganville with no major injuries. RNZ names two people; Fraser mentions three rescued.
Why the alarm took most of a day
Vanuatu police were not told the ferry was missing until 22 hours after she is believed to have sunk, Assistant Commissioner David Bongranlie said through the state broadcaster VBTC, quoted by AP. The silence broke on the Saturday afternoon: AFP reported that a diver from a hotel on Espiritu Santo pulled a man out of the water; the hotel's owner, Ashley Beveridge, told the agency that no rescue operation had been launched before that man washed up on their beach. RNZ has a survivor swimming to Santo to raise the alarm.
New Caledonia was alerted through diplomatic channels at 20.00 that Saturday, by which point the ferry had been off radar for more than 34 hours. COSS NC, the rescue coordination centre in Nouméa, took over on Sunday morning: Vanuatu runs no centre of its own, and the French one is responsible for alerts and sea rescue inside Vanuatu's waters. A French Navy aircraft joined at first light. Until then the search was private boats, a flying doctor dropping water and life jackets from the air, and a private yacht.
Five of the Matui's survivors died during the first night on a floating water tank, according to Dr Mark Turnbull, the pilot and doctor who flew those first searches. The charter boat that sank off Vancouver in June also went unreported until a passing boat saw people in the water.
What maritime law requires of any vessel in the vicinity
SOLAS Chapter V, Regulation 33 binds "the master of a ship at sea which is in a position to be able to provide assistance", on learning that persons are in distress at sea, to "proceed with all speed to their assistance", "regardless of the nationality or status of such persons or the circumstances in which they are found". Most of SOLAS exempts pleasure yachts; Chapter V covers all vessels, pleasure vessels included, as the RYA states. UNCLOS Article 98 puts a matching duty on flag states: each must require the master of a ship flying its flag, "in so far as he can do so without serious danger to the ship, the crew or the passengers", to render assistance to "any person found at sea in danger of being lost".
Position and capability are the whole test, and yachts have met it before. Victorious, 85 metres, ran an 18-hour solo search in the mid-Atlantic in January 2023 and took five sailors off a capsized catamaran.
Lunaris: a 2004 Lürssen built for long passages
Twelve hours of searching in a south-easterly that COSS NC logged at 20 knots, and Turnbull put nearer 30, is a hard night for a yacht. But Lunaris came through it. Lürssen describes her as an ocean-going cruising yacht "capable of being a home afloat for months at a time", with 30-day self-sufficiency "high on the engineering agenda". She took the name Lunaris with her sale in January 2026, and Fraser manages her.
An old prawn trawler
The cause of the capsize has not been established. On 14 September the VMSA laid criminal complaints with police against the owners of Tui Shipping, the company's management and the ferry's master. The Vanuatu Daily Post, quoted by AP, reported that the vessel was not authorised to carry passengers, was not approved for more than 30 people and sailed without the Maritime Safety Authority's knowledge, and that inspectors had warned the company about overloading the day before. Maritime researcher Neil Baird told ABC that the Matui was an old prawn trawler repurposed as a ferry and appeared to be decades old. Tui Shipping gave VBTC a statement expressing sympathy and, as AP reported on 15 September, acknowledging its responsibility for passenger safety; the company gave no account of what happened.
Prime Minister Jotham Napat cancelled his trip to the UN General Assembly, took personal charge of the maritime authority and promised an independent investigation. Its terms and timetable have not been published. A national memorial service is set for 27 September.
Photo: Fraser, via BOAT International; Tui Shipping Company Facebook, via ABC News. Source: BOAT International (18.09.2026), RNZ Pacific, AP, AFP, ABC News, Outre-mer La 1ère, Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes, Lürssen.
