CORONADO (CNS) - A body found floating in the ocean near the Coronado Islands Sunday was positively identified Tuesday as skipper Theo Mavromatis, one of four people killed in a yachting accident late last month.
A fisherman found the 49-year-old Redondo Beach man's body about 2:30 p.m. Sunday, according to the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office.
The office listed his cause of death as blunt-force injuries.
Mavromatis and three other men were taking part in an annual Newport-to-Ensenada race when their 37-foot boat dropped off the event's vessel-tracking system about 1:30 a.m. April 28, according to the Newport Ocean Sailing Association, which stages the competition.
Searchers later that day found the bodies of William R. Johnson Jr., 57, of Torrance; Kevin Rudolph, 53, of Manhattan Beach; and Joseph L. Stewart, 64, of Bradenton, Fla.
Autopsies determined that Johnson and Rudolph died of blunt-force trauma and that Stewart drowned. The U.S. Coast Guard suspended its effort to find Mavromatis on April 29.
A floating debris field initially suggested that Mavromatis' Hunter 376, the Aegean, may have collided with a larger vessel, although officials have also speculated that the yacht may have struck some rocks. The accident occurred just south of the U.S.-Mexico border, about eight miles off the Baja California coast.
The fatalities were the first in the 65-year history of the annual Newport-to-Ensenada race.
