A Queenstown woman is relieved her husband was not on a yacht detained by an Iranian navy gunboat while sailing in the Persian Gulf last week.
Claudine Crabtree told the Otago Daily Times last night her husband, Nick, the skipper, was not on board when the incident happened.
While she did not have any further information, she was "glad he was not on the boat" and "hoped that the others are home soon".
Five young Britons crewing the high-tech racing yacht were captured by those on the gunboat.
The yacht, Kingdom of Bahrain, was due to start a Dubai-Muscat race.
It would have been first offshore race for the boat under the Sail Bahrain banner following its official launch at Amwaj Islands on November 19.
Nick Crabtree was quoted shortly before the vessel's capture as saying: "We are looking forward to flying the flag for Bahrain throughout the Gulf.
The team director of Sail Bahrain, Mr Crabtree said the business offered the chance to helm and sail offshore yachts with a professional crew "with exceptional international sailing experience".
Mr Crabtree has run a similar business in Queenstown, selling rides on NZL 14, a former America's Cup yacht.
Though the New Zealander was listed as the boat's skipper on the Sail Bahrain website, sources said the men taken were Sam Usher, Olly Smith, Luke Porter, Oliver Young and David Bloomer, a Bahrain Radio presenter who was planning to give regular updates during the race.
The yacht was stopped on its way to the Gulf city of Dubai on Wednesday when it "may have strayed inadvertently into Iranian waters," Britain's Foreign Office said.
Richard Schofield, an expert on international boundaries in the Middle East at King's College in London, said it was difficult to understand how its crew could have ended up in trouble with Iranian authorities.
"It's hard to see why, on a regular journey from Bahrain to Dubai, they would have gone through Iranian territorial waters," he said.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said British officials had been in touch about the matter with their Iranian counterparts for nearly a week.
It was not clear why British officials had decided to publicise the case now.
The crew members were still in Iran and "understood to be safe".
