Has a crowd-sourced satellite search located three South Africans lost at sea?

Cape Town - The families of three South African men who have been lost at sea for more than two months have had a glimmer of hope thanks to a Tomnod satellite search. 

Anthony Murray, Reginald Robertson and Jaryd Payne were reported missing by their families, when they disappeared from radars on 18 January after failing to reach their destination in Phuket, Thailand, Health24 Man reports.

The three men left Cape Town on 14 December to deliver the Sunsail RC044-978 catamaran they were sailing to its new owners in Phuket. 

Shortly after they were reported missing, family members launched a satellite search using the crowd sourcing platform Tomnod as well as a Facecbook page called 'Searching for Anthony, Reg and Jaryd.'

The civilian satellite search will assist a joint search already being conducted by Maritime Rescue Co-Ordination Centre in Cape Town, Australian Maritime Safety Authority and TUI Marine, to whom the vessel was going to be delivered. 

According to reports, they had enough food supplies for 65 days, but have been at sea for more than 80 now. 

The search has been driven largely by Robertson's daughter Storme, who had sent out a fresh call on her father's 60th birthday recently for people around the globe to join in the search, SA People reports.

On Tuesday, an update on the Facebook group seems to suggest that someone may have spotted an object at sea that has the same form as the life raft the three men are suspected to have deployed and are now adrift in. 

One of the group members posted the following photo, calling for shares to spread the word: 

Traveller24 has contacted TomNod regarding the satellite image and is awaiting their response. 

In a comment on the post, Storme Roberston addressed one of the group members, saying: "Hi Stan Louw thank you for pressing this sighting with James but please can you remove your tweet that they have been found as we don't have this as confirmation yet and we don't want people to stop looking. We, as the family members, will be the first to hear directly form TUI Marine, Tomnod and AMSA on the outcome of this tag and of course we will let everyone know as soon as we do. Thanks"

TomNod was also famously employed to help search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 after it went missing on 8 March 2014.