A man who lost his wife and their sailboat in a freak accident off Bermuda yesterday spoke of his mixed feelings following the vessel’s recovery last week.Rob Anderson’s wife Jan was swept overboard after their boat was hit by a rogue wave as they travelled to the Island.“She was towed into Bermuda eight months to the day after it happened,” said Mr Anderson, of his boat Triple Stars.The vessel was knocked sideways by a wave last November 11.Mr Anderson told The Royal Gazette: “We were hit by what they term a rogue wave.“It came out from a different direction, and it took the whole boat and slammed us sideways so the mast hit the water.“We were turned 90 degrees. At that point, Jan went over and I went into the rigging. That’s what kept me on board.”The Andersons were racing in the North American Rally to the Caribbean (NARC) at the time. According to Mr Anderson, they were on the cusp of sunny weather when the accident occurred.“The seas were large, but just rolling swells. Nothing we hadn’t seen before.”Mr Anderson said he deployed a ‘man overboard’ device to his wife without success.“In the time after I got that over to her, and the time I got over there — I don’t know if she was hurt when she went over she went down and she never came up.”As Mr Anderson waited to be rescued, his “ditch bag” containing his travel documents and other important items was swept over by another wave.He was saved by the freighter High Jupiter, about two hours after sending his distress signal.Mrs Anderson was never found — and their sailboat had to be abandoned hundreds of miles from Bermuda.“The ship was on its way to Dunkirk for another ten days,” Mr Anderson explained. “It was a 600ft oil tanker.“There was no question of towing my boat alongside. On the way across, we came through another gale, so it only would have been cut loose then.”The 38ft Island Packet 380 was spotted twice by cruise ships. She seemed trapped in a Gulf Stream eddy, Mr Anderson said.The boat drifted North to South over some 360 miles.She was discovered on July 11 by charter fisherman Peter Rans just 26 miles offshore, near Argus Bank, and towed into Ely’s Harbour in Sandys by fisherman Andrew Card.Mr Anderson, who lives on Hupper Island in Maine, was notified by Bermuda Maritime Operations as soon as Triple Stars was found.“It was a bit of a shock,” he said. “There are a lot of boats out there floating around that had to be abandoned.”He said he wasn’t sure yet if he would visit the Island to revisit the scene of his tragedy, but hoped to collect a few personal effects and was interested in seeing the boat’s condition.The couple bought the boat in San Francisco in 2002. Mr Anderson has not sailed since the accident, but is contemplating returning to the water again.“I don’t think this is it for me,” he said.Triple Stars contained a handful of the couple’s personal items DVDs, fishing gear and Scuba equipment.As far as the legal status of the recovered boat, he said: “That I don’t know. I put in a request, but right now it belongs to the insurance company.“We settled back in January. It’s not my boat and I don’t know what the maritime law is regarding my personal property on board.“There are a few things I would like to recover, just little things. If they would allow me to do that, it would be fantastic. If not, I didn’t expect to see anything back.”The vessel is currently being reviewed by Bermuda Customs.Useful website: www.admiraltylawguide.com.