MAVROMATIS, Theo

Theo Mavromatis

MAVROMATIS, Thefanis “Theo” (1962-2012) born May 29, 1962 in Greece, died aboard his sailboat, Aegean, during the 124-mile Newport Beach to Ensenada Race of 2012 when it hit North Coronado Island. He was 49 years old.

His three crew also died:

• Kevin Rudolph, 53, of Manhattan Beach; drowned
• Bill Johnson, 57, of Torrance; died of blunt-force injuries
• Joe Stewart, 64, of Bradenton, Fla.; died of blunt-force injuries

Ensenada-Report-FINAL.pdf

In the News~

May 8, 2012 [patch.com ]: “The body found near the Coronado Islands over the weekend is that of Redondo Beach resident Theo Mavromatis, the skipper of the ill-fated 37-foot sailboat Aegean, the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office confirmed Tuesday morning. Mavromatis had been missing since the wreckage of the boat and the bodies of three of its crew were discovered in a two-mile debris field April 28. Mavromatis, 49—along with Kevin Eric Rudolph, 53, of Manhattan Beach; William Reed Johnson Jr., 57, of Torrance; and Joseph Lester Stewart, 64, of Bradenton, Fla.—lost his life while participating in the annual Lexus Newport Beach to Ensenada Yacht Race. Mavromatis, Rudolph and Johnson died from blunt-force injuries, while Stewart drowned after sustaining blunt-force injuries to his head, according to the medical examiner. San Clemente resident John Spike Ivins and Huntington Beach resident Kevin Veal discovered Mavromatis' body while they were fishing near the Coronado Islands on Sunday afternoon. "Kevin and I saw something in the Middle Grounds (Coronado Islands) which at first we thought was a dead, bloated sea lion," Ivins told Phil Friedman Outdoors. "As we got closer to the floating object, we were stunned to see human arms and legs. "(It was) absolutely shocking." Ivins said the body was bloated, decomposed and had neither hair nor clothes. Ivins called the U.S. Coast Guard and stayed with the body until they arrived. The San Diego Union-Tribune reported Monday that the body would be identified through dental records. "My wife sent me some articles on Mavromatis, and that's when it hit home," Ivins said. "I thought about his family and my kids today. It's just very sad." A floating debris field suggested that the ill-fated Hunter 376 collided with a larger vessel—a theory initially advanced by race officials. Others have suggested, based on data from Mavromatis' GPS tracker, that the boat collided with the northern tip of the Coronado Islands at about 1:30 a.m. April 28. The accident occurred just south of the U.S.-Mexico border, about eight miles off the Baja California coast. The Coast Guard is investigating the crash, according to Coast Guard spokesman Henry Dunphy. He said the agency's accident probes generally take four to six weeks to complete. Additionally, the U.S. Sailing Association will convene a review panel to investigate the crash. Anyone with information is asked to contact ensenadareview@ussailing.org. Race organizers said the fatalities were the first in the 65-year history of the race.”

May 3, 2012 [easyreadernews.com ]: “Theo Mavromatis always felt most at home on the sea. Mavromatis had come to America from the harbor town of Alexandroupolos, Greece, where he’d been drawn to the sea since he was a child. Later, among family and friends, he would fondly recall his early attempts at sailing. “As a teenager, he’d made a simple sailboat by himself, by hand,” said his daughter, Anna Mavromati. “And he had to make it a couple times to make sure it would stay afloat. He went out with his sister, I think, the first time, and they were dumping buckets of water out of it to keep going…and then he made it again, and he actually got it more stable and got it to work. He had lots of sailing stories.”

April 2, 2014 [OCR ]: “Family members of a Redondo Beach sailor who died while racing in the 2012 Newport-to-Ensenada race are suing the makers of the emergency alert system that was on his 37-foot sailboat that crashed in the middle of the night, killing all four people on board. The lawsuit filed March 26 in Los Angeles Superior Court alleges that the SPOT GPS Messenger system that Theo Mavromatis purchased for his boat did not identify the correct emergency responders and did not alert responders to the boat’s distress signal the night of the incident. The incident was the first fatal accident in the 65-year history of the Newport-to-Ensenada Yacht Race, a 125-mile race from Newport Beach to Ensenada, Mexico. The 37-foot Hunter sailboat crashed into North Coronado Island around 1:36 a.m. April 28, 2012, and broke into pieces. All four aboard died, and Mavromatis’ body was found eight days after the grounding. According to a report released by U.S. Sailing in October 2012, a key element of the accident was likely an inadequate lookout, and it was probable that the vessel inadvertently motored beyond a waypoint set before North Coronado Island. The report was issued by the sport’s national organizing body, U.S. Sailing, in conjunction with the U.S. Coast Guard. There were no eyewitnesses.

The report included the SPOT GPS Messenger position reports from which the vessel course and speed were derived, and the times of SPOT text transmissions during the race. The suit, filed by Mavromatis’ widow, Loren Mavromatis, and their three children, names as defendants SPOT LLC, the maker of the alert system, along with its parent company, Globalstar Inc.; Amazon.com, where Mavromatis allegedly purchased the device; and Travel Safety Group (GEOS), which provided response services to SPOT GPS Messenger. The lawsuit alleges that Mavromatis purchased the SPOT GPS Messenger device along with the company’s “basic service,” which was claimed to transmit SOS emergency signals that it received through the GEOS International Emergency Response Coordination Center. In turn, the suit states that International Emergency Response Coordination Center would then contact the appropriate emergency responders in the case of an SOS Distress call. The suit states that when Mavromatis manually activated the SOS function, the SPOT GPS Messenger did not properly alert authorities. “As a direct and proximate cause of the defective SPOT GPS Messenger and negligence of the defendants, Theo suffered severe injuries and ultimately death,” the suit states. Representatives at SPOT LLC. responded in an email to the Register: “Our thoughts have always been with the families involved in this tragic incident which occurred almost two years ago. Our investigation confirmed that the SPOT product on board the Aegean functioned normally.”