Mystery sunken yacht unlikely to be missing Nina

The wreck is not believed to be the American yacht, Nina

A mystery sunken yacht with links to New Zealand, discovered off the coast of Darwin, is unlikely to be the Nina.

The vessel was discovered after a fishing trawler pulled up part of the yacht in its net.

The mystery yacht, which also had links to Sydney, was discovered by a ship owned by Australia Bay Seafoods in about 90 metres of water in the Timor Sea.

Australia's Northern Territory (NT) police were concerned there may be unidentified bodies on board, as the yacht's sail appeared to have been up when the vessel went down.

Australia Bay Seafoods' co-owner Bill Passey told the ABC that the crew of the ship realised their nets had a giant snag when trawling about 170kms from Darwin two weeks ago.

"They hooked up there and it took about six hours to get off and eventually when they did get off something gave way.

"They pulled up...and amongst all the tangled mess was a sail and a mast off a yacht.''

The yacht's sail was a type made by a boutique sailmaker from Sydney, and stainless steel rings recovered from the vessel's blue mast were made in Auckland, Mr Passey said.

NT water police Senior Constable Wade Rogers said missing persons databases had been scoured, however "from what we can establish there is no outstanding persons that haven't been located in Australian waters''.

Modelling had shown that the yacht could have drifted from Indonesia, the ABC reported.

A mollusc expert told police he believed the vessel had been in the ocean for 8-10 months.

Due to the depth of the wreck, police divers could not easily go to investigate the site, however they were preparing to send specialist divers and a remotely-operated device to search the seabed for bodies and recover the rest of the yacht this week, News.com.au reported.

The wreck is not believed to be the American yacht, Nina, which disappeared in the Tasman Sea with seven people aboard last June, as the wreck's mast was blue and not the heavy wooden type aboard the classic 1928 American schooner.