sailboat lost at sea

Search for 3 missing American sailors off coast of Mexico has been suspended: US Coast Guard

They had not contacted friends, family or maritime authorities since April 4.

The search for three Americans missing off the coast of Mexico has been suspended, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday.

"An exhaustive search was conducted by our international search and rescue partner, Mexico, with the U.S. Coast Guard and Canada providing additional search assets," Coast Guard Cmdr. Gregory Higgins said in a statement . "SEMAR [The Mexican Navy] and U.S. Coast Guard assets worked hand-in-hand for all aspects of the case. Unfortunately, we found no evidence of the three Americans' whereabouts or what might have happened. Our deepest sympathies go out to the families and friends of William Gross, Kerry O'Brien and Frank O'Brien."

The Mexican Navy and Coast Guard spent "281 cumulative search hours covering approximately 200,057 square nautical miles, an area larger than the state of California, off Mexico's northern Pacific coast with no sign of the missing sailing vessel nor its passengers," the Coast Guard said.

Kerry O'Brien, Frank O'Brien and Gross had not contacted friends, family, or maritime authorities since April 4.

The trio likely encountered "significant" weather and waves as they attempted to sail their 41-foot sailboat from Mazatlán to San Diego.

"When it started to reach into five, six, seven days and we started to get a little more concerned," Kerry's brother Mark Argall told ABC News.

Higgins had expressed concern that the weather in that region worsened around April 6, with swells and wind creating waves potentially over 20 feet high. The three were sailing a capable 41-foot fiberglass boat, with similar sailboats successfully circumnavigating the planet. However, the lack of clear information about the sailors' location, partially attributable to the lack of GPS tracking and poor cellular service near the Baja peninsula, has left the families of the missing Americans uncertain about their loved ones' whereabouts.

"We have all been spinning our wheels about the different scenarios that could have happened," Gross' daughter Melissa Spicuzza said.

Kerry and Frank O'Brien, a married couple, initially decided to travel to Mexico to sail a 41-foot LaFitte sailboat named "Ocean Bound" to San Diego after the boat underwent repairs near Mazatlán, Mexico, according to Argall.

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The couple decided to hire Gross, a mechanic by trade and sailor with more than 50 years of experience, to help navigate the boat from Mazatlán to San Diego. Spicuzza recounted that friends of Gross would compare him to the 1980s fictional television character and improvisational savant MacGyver based on his ability to repair boats.

"Whatever it takes, he'll get it rigged up. He'll get it working," Spicuzza described.

The Coast Guard believed the sailors left their slip (the equivalent of a parking spot for boats) on April 2. They eventually departed Mazatlán on April 4, based on Facebook posts and cellphone usage.

The sailors expected the trip across the Gulf of California to Cabo San Lucas, where they planned to pick up provisions, would take two days. However, the Coast Guard does not believe the sailors ever stopped in Cabo San Lucas. Since April 4, marinas throughout the Baja Peninsula have not contacted the vessel, nor have any search and rescue crews spotted it.

According to Higgins, the weather worsened around April 6, with winds of 30 knots, strong swells, and waves making navigation more challenging. Spicuzza added that the sail from Mexico to California is inherently tricky since sailors need to navigate against the wind and current.

"From the tip of Baja all the way back up to Alaska, you're going against wind and current, so it's a more difficult, exhausting sail, but of course, doable with the experience that's on board," Spicuzza.

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Spicuzza added that the group's initially planned 10-day journey was likely unrealistic. Sailing against the wind and current would require the sailors to tack frequently, essentially zig-zag to make progress despite sailing into the wind, which could extend the journey to two and half weeks.

Moreover, according to the Coast Guard, the boat lacks trackable GPS navigation, such as a satellite phone or a tracking beacon. The limited cellular service in that region of Mexico also makes triangulating the cell position difficult.

Robert H. Perry, the designer of the 41-foot sailboat, noted that their boat was likely manufactured in Taiwan 35 years ago. Despite its age, the fiberglass sailboat itself was a time-tested, ocean-navigating boat.

The travel circumstances have left family members uncertain about the status of their loved ones. Based on the timing, it appears possible they are "just going to roll into San Diego like nothing happened in maybe about a week," Spicuzza suggested, with the radio silence attributable to some electronic issue. Alternatively, the Coast Guard has worked on plotting where their life raft might have drifted under current weather conditions.

"It's just been a roller coaster of emotions the last several days; I want my dad home, I want him safe, [and] I want the O'Brien's home safe," Spicuzza said. "I'm very much looking forward to sitting around a table with all of them and joking about the time they got lost at sea – that is the hope."

ABC News' Elisha Asif, Helena Skinner, Zohreen Shah, Amantha Chery and Marilyn Heck contributed to this report.

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Two men and a sailboat vanished into open ocean. 10 days later, a miracle arrived

His voice was broken up by a bad connection. But on Dec. 3, Joe DiTomasso left a message with his daughter: The sailboat journey to the Florida Keys was going well. 

Then the 76-year-old, a former auto mechanic from New Jersey, stopped responding. 

For the next 10 frantic days, fears grew as the silence continued. The   Coast Guard launched a massive search of 21,000 square miles of ocean for DiTomasso and his friend, Kevin Hyde, 65.  

The two men and a dog named Minnie had left New Jersey on Thanksgiving weekend on a 30-foot sailboat bound for Marathon, Florida, but hadn't been heard from since reaching the Outer Banks of North Carolina. 

“We were mentally preparing for the worst,” Nina DiTomasso, 37, told USA TODAY.

That was until Tuesday, when a tanker ship spotted a sailboat, apparently adrift, more than 200 miles off the coast of Delaware. On deck, men waved their arms, and a flag. The tanker came alongside and plucked them to safety.

“We all just started screaming when we heard the news, crying and cheering, because it was just so unbelievable,” Nina DiTomasso said.

By Wednesday evening, they were back near the New Jersey shore again, motoring into New York Harbor, this time aboard a 600-foot ship. 

When the tanker picked them up, Nina DiTomasso said, the men were 'just super drained." Exhausted, barely able to talk, the men had left much unknown about their journey and the fate of their boat. Only one thing was for sure: They were home. 

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Destined for warmer weather

DiTomasso’s family said the pair were boating friends and were seeking warmer weather for the winter.

DiTomasso was an experienced boater, his daughter said, who had long worked as an auto mechanic but would often steal away to go saltwater fishing. His experiences were primarily on power boats, she said.

“He was at the shore every second he got,” she said. “He just loved fishing.”

More recently, he lived on a boat in a Cape May marina for part of the year, where some nicknamed him “Joey Tomatoes,” said David Reistad, 38, DiTomasso’s son-in-law. 

As the family gathered for Thanksgiving, DiTomasso was excited to join a friend he knew from the marina for a new journey.

They would take the friend's sailboat from Cape May and head south to Marathon, in the Florida Keys.   

DiTomasso had done the trip before, though not in a sailboat. 

“My Dad actually did this once before, but with a different set of friends on their boat. And he had a great experience,” Nina DiTomasso said. “He was extremely excited.”

Hyde's family could not be immediately reached.

While DiTomasso's daughter was confident in her father's boating ability, she knew less about his route. The two were planning to go “go from port to port,” DiTomasso's daughter said, but she didn’t know if each leg would track outside the coast in open water, or along the Intracoastal Waterway, which runs inland down the Atlantic seaboard. 

They left on Nov. 27. Nina DiTomasso knew he would have cell service, and would call to keep his family updated. 

The vessel was a Catalina 30 sailboat, a popular coastal-cruising design from one of the largest sailboat manufacturers. A typical model would sport a single mast with a two-sail sloop rig, and a small diesel engine. Without major modifications, it would have tanks for enough fresh water to last two people a few days. 

But unlike a typical white fiberglass boat, this hull was a brilliant navy blue. The name "Atrevida II" graced its transom. The word, in Spanish, has several meanings. One of them is "daring."

Into the open sea

Her father began by calling family or friends with regular updates. 

Nina DiTomasso was at home outside Philadelphia while her dad was on his trip. She said the crew was   last heard from after leaving Oregon Inlet, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. 

That meant the crew had already left behind New Jersey and crossed the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. 

Ahead of them lay the coastal South and the blue waters of Florida. But before that was the Outer Banks, the stretch of barrier islands where waves and ocean currents roil up over shallow waters. Its shifting shoals long ago earned it the nickname " Graveyard of the Atlantic ."

A friend of the men said he'd been talking to DiTomasso when his phone died. At first, no one panicked. He often forgot to charge his phone. 

Another friend asked around the marina and found that Kevin’s phone was apparently dead, too. 

“So my Mom looked at my Dad's credit card statement, and he didn't make any new purchases” since Dec. 3, she said. “That's when we really grew concerned.”

Days passed with no word, then more days. On Dec. 11,   the Coast Guard was notified that the two sailors were overdue and subsequently launched a search that would stretch from Florida to New Jersey, the agency said. 

Coast Guard cutters and aircraft participated in the search along with ships from the U.S. Navy and commercial and recreational vessels. 

“They just worked tirelessly, day and night. They sent out planes to search, a helicopter and they put it on social media,” Nina DiTomasso said. 

She said Coast Guard officials said that the boat had previously reported problems with a generator and had run aground but had then set sail once again. 

But with no cell service, DiTomasso's family had no idea where to find Atrevida II. They had no idea how much food or water the men had on board. 

Nina DiTomasso told one television news station, "My friends and everyone was saying, 'If anyone is going to survive this, it's ‘Joey Tomatoes.'"

Reistad said he worried from reading online that if the boat had become disabled, it could have been pushed by currents along the Outer Banks and ultimately pulled along by the Gulf Stream.

That ocean river is a powerful current of water that flows north along the Atlantic Coast. Somewhere offshore – perhaps a few miles off, perhaps as far as 75 miles – a boat would reach the edge of the stream.

“They probably ended up drifting into the Gulf Stream” and “couldn't do anything about it but just be pulled up north,” Reistad said. “The temperatures the other day up here in the north were 20-something degrees."

Once entering the Gulf Stream, a disabled boat would be sucked inexorably northward, and farther and farther offshore, bound for the icy waters of the north Atlantic.  

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Spotted from a ship

On Tuesday, more than two weeks after the men's journey began, nobody had heard from Atrevida II. 

Then someone aboard the tanker Silver Muna, itself in the midst of an Atlantic crossing carrying fuel from Amsterdam, noticed a sight in the open ocean. 

Aboard a small sailboat, two men waved their arms, and a flag. The hull of their boat was a brilliant navy blue. 

Photos posted online by the Coast Guard reveal a bit about the state of Atrevida II. In them the boat has no mast, meaning its sailing rig had been toppled. Some of the cable lifelines that ring the edge of the deck for safety, and other deck hardware, all appear to be smashed. 

Relatives said they later learned that the boat had no fuel and no power. Its radios and navigation equipment were inoperable after a storm near Hatteras blew them off course. 

After drifting, the men spent two days without water, cutting lines to pull out the last drops, they said later. 

"They’re in the middle of the ocean with no power, no anything," Reistad said. "It's just unbelievable.”

The men and a dog were brought aboard the tanker shortly after 4 p.m. An evaluation by the ship’s medical staff revealed no immediate concerns, the Coast Guard said.

“This is an excellent example of the maritime community’s combined efforts to ensure safety of life at sea,” Daniel Schrader, a Coast Guard spokesman said in a statement.

Schrader also stressed the importance of sailors traveling with what’s commonly known as an “EPIRB” or Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon. It allows people on a boat to deliver their position to   first responders in an emergency.

By Wednesday evening, the ship had arrived in New York to be reunited with family. Nina DiTamasso drove from her home in Pennsylvania to meet him. 

DiTomasso said they experienced high winds and mountainous waves. He said the boat lost power, rigging and steering.

“I never saw wind so strong — roaring,” he told Coast Guard officials during a video showing the men being taken from the tanker to shore. 

Hyde praised the crew of the Silver Muna for spotting them given "the size of his ship and the size of the ocean, compared to this toothpick I'm floating around in," according to ABC7.

During their ordeal, DiTomasso said that he wasn't sure he'd see his family again, explaining what helped him pull through: "My granddaughter. And the cross of Jesus. Every morning I'd wake up and kiss it and say the Our Father," he said.

Coast Guard photos posted on Facebook showed the men being welcomed in New York on Wednesday night, the dog in tow. 

Nina DiTomasso said she planned to “just hug him” and then stay in New York with their father. The journey that started on Thanksgiving weekend had not gone as planned. Instead, she said, it ended with a "Christmas miracle." 

More from USA TODAY: The year in pictures

Contributing: The Associated Press

Chris Kenning is a national reporter. Reach him on Twitter  @chris_kenning .

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Girdwood couple and friend missing on Mexico-to-San Diego sailboat trip

The Mexican Navy, with the assistance of the U.S. Coast Guard, is searching for three American sailors, last heard from April 4, 2023, near Mazatlan, Mexico. Kerry O'Brien and Frank O'Brien of Girdwood, pictured here, and their friend William Gross were sailing aboard the 44-foot La Fitte sailing vessel named Ocean Bound. (Courtesy U.S. Coast Guard)

Three experienced American sailors, including a couple from Alaska, are missing during a trip around Mexico’s Baja California peninsula and would have been battling strong winds and 15-foot waves from the outset, Coast Guard officials said Monday.

The Mexican Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard continue their search for the trio, who were expected to arrive in San Diego more than a week ago, according to authorities.

Kerry O’Brien and Frank O’Brien and their friend William Gross were last heard from when they left Mazatlán, Mexico, on April 4, the U.S. Coast Guard said in a news release. Kerry and Frank O’Brien live in Girdwood, according to Ellen Argall, Kerry O’Brien’s mother.

They left the coastal town in the Mexican state of Sinaloa on a 44-foot LaFitte sailboat and planned to stop in Cabo San Lucas on April 6 to resupply, officials said. But there is no record of their boat arriving at the port in Mexico, according to authorities.

The trio are “experienced sailors,” according to a joint statement from their families. Gross has over 50 years of sailing experience, while wife and husband Kerry and Frank O’Brien each have 20 years’ experience and a captain’s license with the U.S. Coast Guard, the statement said.

On the day the boat was last seen, local conditions on the ocean were “rough,” U.S. Coast Guard spokesperson Levi Reed said. Winds were around 34 mph with ocean waves of 15 to 20 feet, Reed said.

The Mexican Navy, with the assistance of the U.S. Coast Guard, is searching for three American sailors, last heard from April 4, 2023, near Mazatlan, Mexico. Kerry O'Brien and Frank O'Brien of Girdwood, Alaska, and their friend William Gross were sailing aboard the 44-foot La Fitte sailing vessel named Ocean Bound. (Courtesy U.S. Coast Guard)

Ocean Bound left Mazatlán at 9:30 a.m. heading west across the Sea of Cortez, according to the family’s statement, but the boat did not check in to the Cabo San Lucas marina by Saturday or Sunday. According to the family, someone on the boat attempted to contact the marinas in Cabo San Lucas by cellphone, but their calls were short based on cellphone pings, which means they were probably unsuccessful in getting a connection.

There has been no radio contact from them since, the family said.

Their boat, the Ocean Bound, has not been sighted, and search and rescue crews have contacted port officials across Mexico, including in Baja California, to alert them about the missing sailors, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Urgent broadcasts have been sent out about the sailors and their boat, with request for all mariners in the area to keep lookout.

“The sailing community has hundreds of additional vessels looking for our family members,” the family said in their statement. “Sadly they have not seen or made contact with them either.”

Both U.S. and Mexican agencies have searched along the Baja California coast by ship and aircraft. The U.S. Coast Guard is assisting the Mexican government, which is taking the lead in the search and rescue operation.

There are two areas of focus for the search operations, according to the statement. One area assumes that the boat lost radio contact but continued traveling to San Diego, north or south of Turtle Bay on the Baja peninsula. The second area assumes the boat became disabled and went adrift, which would include a 100-mile area south and southeast of Cabo San Lucas and near Puerto Vallarta, the family said.

The family thanked the U.S. Coast Guard and the Mexican Navy for their help in searching for the O’Briens and Gross.

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A massive search for 3 missing American sailors off Mexico coast has been called off

Jonathan Franklin

The Mexican Navy searched for three Americans who went missing along with their sailboat off Mexico's northern Pacific coast. Kerry O'Brien, Frank O'Brien and William Gross were aboard the boat and have not been heard from since April 4, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. AP hide caption

The Mexican Navy searched for three Americans who went missing along with their sailboat off Mexico's northern Pacific coast. Kerry O'Brien, Frank O'Brien and William Gross were aboard the boat and have not been heard from since April 4, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

The search for three Americans missing along with their sailboat off Mexico's northern Pacific coast since April 4 has been suspended, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

In a news release Wednesday, the agency said the search was suspended pending "further developments" after SEMAR — the Mexican navy — and the Coast Guard spent roughly 280 hours searching Mexico's northern Pacific coast.

After searching nearly 200,000 square miles with no sign of the missing passengers and the missing sailing vessel, officials suspended the search.

"SEMAR and U.S. Coast Guard assets worked hand-in-hand for all aspects of the case. Unfortunately, we found no evidence of the three Americans' whereabouts or what might have happened," Coast Guard Cmdr. Gregory Higgins said.

U.S. Coast Guard and Mexican navy are searching for 3 missing American sailors

The three sailors — identified as Kerry O'Brien, Frank O'Brien and William Gross — reportedly left Mazatlán, a city on Mexico's west coast, aboard a 44-foot boat named Ocean Bound on April 4 and were headed to San Diego.

They planned to stop in Cabo San Lucas — roughly 224 miles from Mazatlán — on April 6 to report in before they continued their trip, the Coast Guard said. However, there was no record of the three mariners arriving in Cabo San Lucas nor a check-in of their location.

In an interview with San Diego TV station NBC 7 , the family of William Gross told the station they have not lost hope and that he and his sailing companions will be found.

"Our hope is for our Dad, and Kerry and Frank to be sailing into port soon, tired and sore, but safe," the Gross family said in a statement to the station. "And our hearts certainly go out to the other two families who are being equally impacted during this extremely difficult time."

No fuel, no mast, no water: Rescued sailors describe harrowing ordeal after 10 days lost at sea

• Published: Dec. 15, 2022, 12:54 p.m.

• The Associated Press

Two sailors who drifted hundreds of miles in the Atlantic Ocean for 10 days after a storm hit their sailboat off North Carolina thanked the crew of the tanker that rescued them and said they were lucky to have survived.

Kevin Hyde and Joe DiTomasso, freshly ashore in New York City on Wednesday night after their ordeal, described rolling in mountainous waves after the wind dismasted their boat, then running out of water as currents pulled them further and further into the frigid North Atlantic.

“Youse don’t know what 40-foot waves look like,” said DiTomasso, who is 76. “How high’s this building? How high’s the roof?”

Kevin Hyde, 64, and Joe DiTommasso, 76, departed Cape May on the “Atrevida II,” a 30-foot Catalina sailboat, to travel to Marathon, Florida. They were rescued on Tuesday by an tanker ship 214 miles off the coast of Delaware. Photos provided by U.S. Coast Guard

The desperate sailors cut their broken mast free, allowing the boat with its weighted keel to ride the swells without being dragged over. “That boat rode so good. That boat could take it, but guess what? We couldn’t. We were beat,” said DiTomasso.

The N.J. boaters who were lost at sea for 10 days arrive in Staten Island. U.S. Coast Guard

The nightmare began for the two sailors midway through a planned journey from Cape May County to the warmth of the Florida Keys.

After departing on Nov. 27 , with a pet dog, they had made it safely as North Carolina. The storm came up after they sailed from the Oregon Inlet off the Outer Banks on Dec. 3.

Hyde, 65, said the pair were “sailing along, having a good time” and nearing Cape Hatteras when the bad weather came in and began blowing them off course — and then blew the mast off their boat, the Atrevida II.

The boat also lost power and fuel. “So by that time, we were just being pushed out to sea farther and farther,” Hyde said.

The men had little food and ran out of water.

“We didn’t have water for two days,” DiTomasso said. “And I bought these beans. And the best part about the beans, they had water in them. They were soaked in water. And we’re taking sips at a time.”

The U.S. Coast Guard was notified that the sailors were overdue on Sunday and began a search that spanned the waters from northern Florida to New Jersey .

But it was the crew of the Silver Muna, a tanker headed from the Netherlands to New York, that spotted the Atrevida II some 214 miles east of Delaware on Tuesday.

Hyde, 65, said he had been running a flashing light as they drifted, hoping they might be seen by other marine traffic. “By some bizarre chance” he said, a member of the tanker’s crew spotted something and sounded the alarm. The tanker’s captain launched a search.

“If you look at the size of his ship and the size of the ocean and just compare it to this toothpick that I’m floating around in — just to be able to spot that, because of the diligence of his crew,” the thankful Hyde said. “Their training paid off and they found us.”

The tanker’s crew then maneuvered alongside the relatively tiny sailboat, in ocean swells, to pluck the two lost sailors from the deck and get them to safety.

They were exhausted after arriving in New York, but expected to make a full recovery.

Asked by a reporter if they would do it again, DiTomasso smiled and said “No.”

“I’m staying closer to shore because I have a boat too. And I’m staying in sight of land.”

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Three American citizens missing at sea

The Mexican Navy and United States Coast Guard are searching for three missing American sailors who have not been seen since April 4.

According to the Coast Guard , Kerry O’Brien, Frank O’Brien, and William Gross were sailing onboard the “Ocean Bound,” a 44-foot LaFitte sailboat. They were last heard from on April 4 when they departed Mazatlán, Mexico — a resort town in Sinaloa.

Three Americans were sailing to San Diego with a planned stop in Cabo San Lucas, where they would pick up additional supplies on April 6 but the Coast Guard said there is no record of the group arriving in Cabo San Lucas or providing any report of their location. Additionally, marinas in Baja, Mexico, have yet to see the vessel or sailors.

The trip from Mazatlán to Cabo San Lucas requires an over 200-mile sail across the southern Gulf of California, also known as the Sea of Cortez.

The Mexican Navy is now searching for the missing sailors with assistance from the Coast Guard, asking any mariner to look for the missing vessel.

“Search and rescue coordinators have contacted marinas throughout Baja, Mexico, with negative sightings of the vessel,” the Coast Guard said. “Urgent marine information broadcasts have been issued over VHF radio requesting all mariners to keep a lookout for the missing persons and vessel.”

The three sailors were traveling on a 44-foot sailboat designed by Robert H. Perry Yacht Designers , equipped with a single mast for sailing and an auxiliary motor. According to Cruising World , the LaFitte 44 is a formidable ocean sailboat, with multiple owners circumnavigating the world with the boat.

Source: OEM

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Shipwrecked: A Shocking Tale of Love, Loss, and Survival in the Deep Blue Sea

Illustration by Comrade

A drift in the middle of the ocean, no one can hear you scream.

It was a lesson Brad Cavanagh was learning by the second. He had been above deck on the Trashman , a sleek, 58-foot Alden sailing yacht with a pine-green hull and elegant teak trim, battling 100-mile-per-hour winds as sheets of rain fell from the turbulent black sky. The latest news report had mentioned nothing about bad weather, but two days into his voyage a tropical storm formed off of Cape Fear in the Carolinas, whipping up massive, violent waves out of nowhere. Soaked to the skin and too tired to stand, the North Shore native from Byfield sought refuge down below, where he braced himself by pressing his feet and back between the walls of a narrow hallway to keep from being knocked down as 30-foot-tall walls of water tossed the boat around the open seas.

Below deck with Cavanagh were four crewmates: Debbie Scaling, with blond hair and blue eyes, was an experienced sailor. As the first American woman to complete the Whitbread Round the World Race—during which she’d navigated some of the most difficult conditions on the planet—she was already well known in professional sailing circles. Mark Adams, a mid-twenties Englishman who had been Cavanagh’s occasional racing partner; the boat’s captain, John Lippoth; and Lippoth’s girlfriend, Meg Mooney, rounded out the crew, who were moving a Texas tycoon’s yacht from Maine to Florida for the winter season.

As the storm continued, Cavanagh grew increasingly angry. At 21 years old and less experienced than most of the others, he felt as though no one had a plan for how they were going to get out of this mess alive. He knew their situation was dire. The motor was dead for the third time on the trip, and they had already cut off the wind-damaged mainsail. That meant nature was in control. They could only ride it out and hope to survive long enough for the Coast Guard to rescue them. Crewmates had been in contact with authorities nearly every hour since the early morning, and a rescue boat was supposedly on its way. It’s just a matter of time , Cavanagh told himself again and again, just a matter of time.

After a while, the storm settled into a predictable pattern: The boat would ride up a wave, tilt slightly to port-side and then ride down the wave, and right itself for a moment of stillness and quiet, sheltered from the wind in the valley between mountains of water. Cavanagh began to relax, but then the boat rose over another wave, tilted hard, and never righted itself. Watching the dark waters of the Atlantic approach with terrifying speed through the window in front of him, Cavanagh braced for impact. An instant later, water shattered the window and began rushing into the boat. He jumped up from the floor with a single thought: He had to rouse Scaling from her bunkroom. He had to get everyone off the ship. The Trashman was going down.

Three days earlier, the weather had been perfect: The sun sparkled on the water and warmed everything its rays touched, despite bursts of cool breezes. Cavanagh was walking the docks of Annapolis Harbor alongside Adams, both of them hunting for work. A job Adams had previously secured for them aboard a boat had fallen through, and all they had to show for it was a measly $50 each. As they made their way along the water, Cavanagh spotted an attractive woman standing by a bank of pay phones. He looked at her and she stared back at him, a sandy-haired, 6-foot-3-inch former prep school hockey player draped in a letterman jacket. It wasn’t until she called out his name that he realized who she was: Debbie Scaling.

Cavanagh came of age in a boating family. He’d survived his first hurricane at sea in utero, and grew up on 4,300 feet of riverfront property in Byfield, where his father, a trained reconnaissance photographer named Paul, taught him and his siblings how to sail from an early age. From the outside, the elite schools, the sailboat, the new car every five years, the grand house, and the self-made patriarch gave the impression that the Cavanaghs were living the suburban American dream. Inside the home, though, it was a horror show. Always drinking, Cavanagh’s father emotionally abused, insulted, and belittled his wife and children, Cavanagh recalls. Whenever Cavanagh heard the clinking of ice cubes in his father’s glass, his stress meter spiked.

Despite that—or perhaps because of it—all Cavanagh ever wanted was his father’s approval. Sailing, he thought, would earn his respect. Cavanagh’s sister, Sarah, after all, had been a star sailor, and at family dinners his hard-drinking—and hard-to-please—father talked about her with pride and adulation. In fact, it was Cavanagh’s sister who had first met Scaling when they raced across the Atlantic together a year earlier. She had recently introduced Scaling to Cavanagh and her family, and now, standing at that pay phone in Annapolis, Scaling could hardly believe her eyes. At that very moment, she had just called Cavanagh’s household in hopes of convincing Sarah to join the crew of the Trashman , and here was Sarah’s younger brother standing right in front of her.

Scaling was desperately looking for help on the yacht. Already things had been going poorly: The boat’s captain, Lippoth, who was a heavy drinker, was passed out below deck when she first showed up at the Southwest Harbor dock in Maine to report for work. Soon after they set sail, they picked up the captain’s girlfriend, Mooney, because she wanted to come along for the trip. From Maine to Maryland, Lippoth rarely eased the sails and relied on the inboard motor, which consistently sputtered and needed repair. They’d struggled to pick up additional hands as they traveled south, and Scaling knew they needed more-qualified help for the difficult sail along the coast of the Carolinas, exposed at sea to high winds and waves. Scaling didn’t share any of this with Cavanagh or Adams when Lippoth offered them a job, though. Happy to have work, the pair accepted and climbed aboard.

Perhaps Cavanagh should have known something was wrong with the yacht when the captain mentioned that the engine kept burning out.

“Mayday! Mayday!” A crew member was shouting into the radio, trying to summon the Coast Guard as the yacht began taking on water. Cavanagh had just burst into Scaling’s cabin, while Adams roused Lippoth and Mooney. And now they huddled together at the bottom of a flight of stairs watching the salty seawater rise toward the ceiling. Lippoth tried to activate the radio beacon that would have given someone, anyone, their latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates, but the water rushing in carried it away before he could reach it.

The crew started making their way up toward the deck to abandon ship. Cavanagh spotted the 11-and-a-half-foot, red-and-black Zodiac Mark II tied to a cleat near the cockpit. The outboard motor sat next to it on the mount, but the yacht was sinking too fast to grab it. As he fumbled with the lines of the Zodiac, one broke, recoiled, and ripped his shirt open. Then he lost his grip on the dinghy, and it floated off. Fortunately, it didn’t go far. Adams wasn’t so lucky. A strong gust of wind ripped the life raft out of his hands, and the sinking yacht started to take the raft and its emergency food, water rations, and first-aid kit down with it. By the time Cavanagh swam off the Trashman , it was nearly submerged.

As Cavanagh made his way toward the dinghy, he kicked off his boots, which belonged to his father. For a moment, all he could think was how angry his dad would be at him for losing them. When he got to the Zodiac, he yelled to the others to grab ahold of the raft before the yacht sucked them down with it. The crew made it onto the dinghy with nothing but the clothing on their backs. As they turned around, the last visible piece of the Trashman disappeared beneath the ocean.

Terrified, the five crew members spent the next four hours in the water, being thrashed about by the waves while holding on to the lines along the sides of the Zodiac, which they had flipped upside down to prevent it from blowing away. During the calmer moments, they ducked underneath for protection from the strong winds, with only their heads occupying a pocket of air underneath the raft. There wasn’t much space to maneuver, but still Cavanagh felt the need to move toward one end of the boat to get some distance from his crewmates while he processed his white-hot anger at Lippoth and Adams. Over the past two days, Adams had often been too drunk to do his job, and Lippoth never did anything about it, leaving him and Scaling to pick up the slack. Cavanagh had spent his childhood on a boat with a drunken father, and now, once again, he’d somehow managed to team up with an alcoholic sailing partner and a captain willing to look the other way.

Perhaps he should have known something was wrong with the yacht when the captain mentioned that the engine kept burning out. Maybe he should have been concerned that Lippoth didn’t even have enough money for supplies. But there was nothing he could do about it now, adrift in the Atlantic and crammed under an inflated dinghy trying to stay alive.

As nighttime approached and the temperature dropped, Cavanagh devised a plan for the crew to seek shelter on the underside of the Zodiac yet remain out of the water. First, he grabbed a wire on the raft and ran it from side to side. He lay his head on the bow of the boat and rested his lower body on the wire. Then the others climbed on top of him, any way they could, to stay under the dinghy’s floor but just out of the water. When the oxygen underneath the Zodiac ran out, they’d exit, lift the boat just long enough to allow new air into the pocket, and go back under again.

Sleep-deprived and dehydrated, Cavanagh’s mind wandered home to Byfield and the endless summer afternoons of his childhood spent under his family’s slimy dock, playing hide-and-seek with friends. Cavanagh had spent a lot of his life hiding from his father and his alcohol-fueled rages. If there was a silver lining to the abuse and the fear he grew up with, it was that he learned how to survive under pressure and to avoid the one fatal strain of seasickness: panic.

The next morning, that skill was suddenly in high demand as Lippoth unexpectedly swam out from under the Zodiac to find fresh air. He said he felt like he was having a heart attack and refused to go back under. The storm had calmed, but a cool autumn breeze was sucking the heat from their wet bodies, and Cavanagh wanted the crew to stay under the boat to keep warm. Disagreeing with him, Cavanagh’s crewmates decided to flip the boat right-side up and climb onboard. It momentarily saved their lives: They soon noticed three tiger sharks circling them.

Mooney had accidentally gotten caught on a coil of lines and wires while abandoning the yacht, leaving a bloody gash behind her knee. Everyone else had their cuts and scrapes, too, and the sharks had followed the scent. The largest shark in the group began banging against the boat, then swam under the craft and picked it up out of the water with its body before letting it drop back down. The crew grabbed onto the sides of the Zodiac while Cavanagh and Scaling tried to fashion a makeshift anchor out of a piece of plywood attached to the raft with the metal wire, hoping that it would help steady the boat. No sooner had they dropped the wood into the water than a shark bit it and began dragging the boat at full speed like some twisted version of a joy ride. When the shark finally spit the makeshift anchor out, Cavanagh reeled it in and Adams, in a rage, grabbed it and tried to smash the shark’s head with it. Cavanagh begged his partner to calm down. “The shark’s reaction to that might be bad,” he said, “so just cool it.”

Cavanagh believed that if they could all just stay calm enough to keep the boat upright, they could make it out alive. “The Coast Guard knows we’re here,” Cavanagh told the others, who had heard a plane roaring overhead before the Trashman sank. It was presumably sent to locate any survivors so a rescue ship could bring them back to shore. Unknown at the time was that a boat had been on the way to rescue the group, when for some reason—a miscommunication of sorts—the search was either forgotten or called off. No one was coming for them.

Brad Cavanagh is still haunted by his fight for survival. / Portrait by Matt Kalinowski

Fighting to survive, Cavanagh knew he needed to keep his mind and body busy. With blistered lips and cracked hands, he pulled seaweed onboard to use as a blanket, and he flipped the boat to clean out the urine and fetid water that had accumulated in it. First, he scanned the water to make sure the sharks had left. Then, with Adams’s help, he leaned back and tugged on the wire to flip the boat, rinsed it out, and flipped it back over again so everyone could climb back in. He had a job and a purpose, and it kept him sane.

The others struggled. Adams and Lippoth were severely dehydrated. (Adams from all the scotch he drank and Lippoth from the cigarettes he chain-smoked before the Trashman went down.) Meanwhile, Mooney’s cut was infected and filled with pus; she was getting sicker and weaker. As they lay together in a small pool of water in the bottom of the boat, they all developed body sores, likely from staph infections. Cavanagh’s skin became so tender that even brushing up against another person sent a current of pain through his body. After three days without food and water and using their energy to hold on to the Zodiac during the storm, they were all completely spent.

Realizing that the Coast Guard may not be coming after all, some crew members began to believe their only hope for survival was to eventually wash up on shore. What they weren’t aware of was that a current was pulling them even farther out to sea.

That night, Cavanagh dreamt of home. He was on a boat, sailing, and talking to the men on a fishing vessel riding along next to him as he made his way from Newburyport to Buzzards Bay. It was the route his family took when moving their boat every summer.

The day after he had that dream, the situation descended into a nightmare: Lippoth and Adams began drinking seawater. It slaked their thirst momentarily, but Cavanagh knew it would only be a matter of time before it sent them deeper into madness. Soon enough, the delusions began. First, Lippoth started reaching around the bottom of the boat looking for supplies that didn’t exist. “We bought cigarettes. Where are they?” Lippoth asked. Then Lippoth began trying to convince Mooney that they were going to take a plane to Maine, where his mother worked at a hospital. “We’re going to Portland,” he told her. “I’m going to get the car. I want you guys to pick up the boat and I’ll come back out and get you,” Lippoth said before sliding over the edge of the Zodiac and into the water.

“Brad, you’ve got to get John,” Scaling said to Cavanagh in a panic. But Cavanagh was so weak, he could barely muster the energy to coax Lippoth back onboard. “If you go away and die, then I might die, too. I don’t want to die,” Cavanagh pleaded.

It was too late. The wind pulled the Zodiac away from him. The captain soon drifted out of sight. Across the empty expanse of the ocean, Cavanagh could hear Lippoth’s last howls as the sharks attacked.

An old newspaper clipping of Cavanagh and Scaling, not long before their rescue. / Courtesy photo

Now there were four. Cavanagh, though, noticed Adams was quickly careening into madness, hitting on Mooney, and proposing that sex would cheer her up. Rebuffed, he decided to take his party elsewhere. “Great,” Cavanagh recalls him saying, “if we’re not going to have sex, I’m going back to 7-Eleven to get some beers and cigarettes.”

“You’re not going,” Cavanagh said. “We’re out in the middle of the ocean.”

“I know, I know,” he told Cavanagh. “I’m just going to hang over the side and stretch out a little bit. I’ll get back in the boat.”

Holding onto the side of the raft, Adams slipped into the water. Cavanagh looked away for a moment to say something to Scaling, and when he turned back, Adams was gone. Soon after, the boat began to spin and the water around them started to churn wildly. Cavanagh knew the sharks had gotten Adams, but he was so focused on surviving that it hardly registered that his racing buddy was gone forever.

The three remaining castaways spent the rest of the evening being knocked around as the sharks bumped and prodded the boat. They found something they like , Cavanagh said to himself. And now they want more.

Mooney lay there shivering violently from the cold. In the black of night, she lurched at Cavanagh, scratching at him and screaming. Then she began speaking in tongues. In the morning, Cavanagh woke first and found her lying on her back, her arms outstretched, staring into the sky. “She’s dead,” Cavanagh said when Scaling woke up. “She’s been dead for hours.”

Then a terrifying thought came to his mind: Maybe we could eat her . He was so hungry, so desperately famished, but her body was covered in sores and oozing pus.

Cavanagh and Scaling removed Mooney’s shirt so they would have another layer to keep warm, and her jewelry so they could return it to her family. They still hoped they would have that chance. Then they pushed her naked body off the raft. She floated like a jellyfish, with her arms and legs straight down, away and over the waves. Neither of them were watching when the sharks came for her, too.

After Mooney died, Scaling was troubled that she was lying in pus-infected water and begged Cavanagh to flip the boat over and clean it out. Weak and unsteady, he agreed to try. Standing on the edge of the Zodiac, he tugged the wire and tried to flip it, but he didn’t have the strength to do it alone. Then he gave another tug, lost his balance, and tumbled backward into the water. He tried to get back in the boat but couldn’t. Panic seized him. Every person who had come off that boat had been eaten by sharks. He needed to get back in fast, and he needed Scaling’s help.

Cavanagh begged her to help him up, but she only sat there sobbing inconsolably on the other side of the raft. With his last bit of strength, Cavanagh willed himself over the side on his own. He sat in the boat, winded and seething with anger. The entire time, from when they were on the Trashman with a drunken crewmate, during the storm, and throughout their harrowing journey on the Zodiac, Scaling and Cavanagh had upheld a pact to look out for each other, to protect each other from the sharks, the madness, the others. How could she have left me there in the water? he thought. How could she have let me down? They were supposed to be a team. Now on their fifth day without food or water, he couldn’t even look at her. There were two of them left, but he felt alone.

They sat in a cold, uncomfortable silence until he had something important to say. “Deb, look,” Cavanagh shouted. A large vessel was approaching them. They’d spotted a couple of ships before in the distance, but none were close enough for them to be seen. As it moved toward them, he could see a man on the deck waving. Shortly after, crew members threw lines with large glass buoys on the end of them. But they all landed short, splashing in the water too far away. Undeterred, the men on deck pulled the rescue buoys back and tried again.

Cavanagh, for his part, couldn’t move. “I’m not going anywhere,” he told Scaling. It felt as if every muscle had gone limp. He had nothing left after spending days balancing the boat, flipping it, pulling it, and watching his crewmates die. The ship made another turn. Closer. The men aboard threw the lines again. Scaling jumped into the water and started swimming.

Seeing his crewmate in the water was all the motivation Cavanagh needed. Fuck it , he told himself. Here I go . He rolled overboard and managed to grab a line, letting the crew reel his weakened body in and hoist him up onto the deck along with Scaling. Aboard the ship, Cavanagh saw women wearing calico dresses with aprons and steel-toed work boots waiting for them. They were speaking Russian. At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. Coast Guard never came to save them, but ice traders on a Soviet vessel did.

The crew gave Cavanagh and Scaling dry clothes and medical attention, along with warm tea kettles filled with coffee, sugar, and vodka. That night, as the Coast Guard finally arrived and spirited the two survivors to a hospital, the temperature dropped down into the 30s. Cavanagh and Scaling wouldn’t have made it through another night at sea.

As Cavanagh was recuperating in the hospital, his mother flew down to be by his side. Seeing her appear at his bedside felt like the happiest moment of his life. His father, however, never came; he was on a sailing trip.

Cavanagh soon returned home to Massachusetts and once again felt the need to keep busy: He immediately began taking odd jobs in hopes of earning enough cash to begin traveling to sailboat races again. Processing what he’d endured—five days without food or water and man-eating sharks—was next to impossible. The Southern Ocean Racing Conference season in Florida started in January, and he was determined to be there, but not necessarily to race. He needed to talk to the only other person who had made it off that Zodiac alive. He had something important he needed to tell Scaling.

A few months later, Cavanagh boarded a flight to Fort Lauderdale for the event. With no place to stay, he slept in an empty boat parked in a field. Walking around the next day, he caught a glimpse of the latest issue of Sail magazine and stopped dead in his tracks: Staring back at him was a photo of him and Adams, plastered across the cover. A photographer had snapped a shot of the two racing buddies just before they’d joined the Trashman . It was like seeing a ghost.

Cavanagh paced the docks searching for Scaling—then there she stood, looking as beautiful as ever. His whole body was pumping with adrenaline at the sight of his former crewmate. He needed to tell her he was in love with her. They had shared something that no one else could ever understand. The bond he felt was far deeper than any he’d ever known.

He moved toward her to speak, but the mere sight of Cavanagh made Scaling recoil, reminding her of the horrors that she’d suffered at sea while in the Zodiac. “I’m sorry, but I cannot be around you,” he recalls her saying. “I don’t want you to have anything to do with me. Please leave me alone.” Dejected and hurt, Cavanagh retreated. Then he did what he’d always done: He walked the docks, banging on boats until he found someone willing to hire him.

As the years rolled by like waves, Scaling became a socialite and motivational speaker, talking publicly and often about her fight to survive. She appeared on Larry King Live and wrote a memoir. She and Cavanagh both continued to sail and ran in similar circles, seeing each other often, and both trying desperately to hide their pain when they did.

Scaling eventually settled down in Medfield, where she raised a family and spent summers on the Cape. In 2009, her son, also an avid sailor, drowned in an accident. Nearly three years to the day later, she passed away in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, at 54. Cavanagh was walking out of a marina in Newport, Rhode Island, when someone broke the news to him. He was profoundly disappointed. Disappointed with life itself. He had loved her. There was no information in her obituary about her cause of death, but he recalls there were whispers among family members of suicide. Cavanagh believed no one could have saved her: She was still tortured by those days lost at sea. He was now the lone survivor of the Trashman tragedy.

Several years later, Scaling’s daughter gave Cavanagh a frame. Inside it was a neatly coiled metal wire—the same one Cavanagh had rigged up to suspend their shivering bodies under the Zodiac and flip the boat to keep it clean. It was what had kept them both alive. Unbeknownst to him, Scaling had retrieved it after the dinghy was found still floating in the ocean. She framed it and hung it on her wall, keeping it close all those years.

Cavanagh remains hell-bent on learning why the Coast Guard never showed up in the aftermath of that fateful storm.

On a cold winter day, I drove to Cavanagh’s home in Bourne, where he lives with his wife, a schoolteacher, and his two children. He still had wide shoulders and a strong face, now layered with deep wrinkles, and greeted me with a handshake. His enormous hands engulfed mine.

The wind howled outside and a fire burned in the living room’s gas stove as he sat down on his couch to talk—for the very first time at length—about his life since being rescued. Above his head was the rendering of a floating school he once wanted to build for the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. It had classrooms, living quarters for the students, and bathrooms, but it never was built. It became one of Cavanagh’s many grand ideas over the years, all of which had to do with sailing, that he never saw to fruition. He wants to write a book, too, like Scaling, but he hasn’t been able to get started.

Sailing is the one thing that has remained constant in Cavanagh’s life. He said the ocean continued to give him freedom, even as he remained chained to his past, to the shipwreck that almost killed him, and to the abusive father who failed him.

While we sat there, listening to the wind, Cavanagh pulled out his father’s sailing logbook. In it were the dates and locations of his around-the-world trip. The day his father set sail in 1982, Cavanagh thought he was finally safe. His mother had just filed for divorce and Cavanagh no longer felt he had to stick around to protect her, so he left home to start his life. His father had invited him to join him on his trip, but there was no way Cavanagh was doing that. He wound up on the Trashman instead.

Cavanagh paused to read his father’s entries from the days that Cavanagh was lost at sea. At the time, his father had been docked and drunk in Bermuda, which lies off the coast of the Carolinas, just beyond where the yacht went down. Then he set sail again into the weakened tail end of the same storm that had sunk the Trashman , not knowing that his son had been floating in that same ocean, fighting for his life and waiting for someone to save him.

Cavanagh remains hell-bent on learning why the Coast Guard never showed up in the aftermath of that fateful storm. He has documents and photos from the official case file after the sinking of the Trashman , but they give few, if any, clues. He has spent decades trying to figure out what happened, and now that he’s the only crew member alive, he’s even more determined to find the truth. He wants to know how rescuers forgot about him and his crewmates, and why. Haunted by his memories, he has driven up and down the East Coast, stopping at bases and looking for anyone to speak to him about the incident. He is still adrift, nearly 40 years later, still searching for answers.

clock This article was published more than  1 year ago

Sailboat crew rescued in Pacific after abandoning ship sunk by whale

Four people aboard the raindancer were stranded in the pacific ocean for 10 hours.

His circumstances sounded straight out of “Moby-Dick,” but Rick Rodriguez wasn’t kidding. In his first text messages from the life raft, he said he was in serious trouble.

“Tommy this is no joke,” he typed to his friend and fellow sailor Tommy Joyce. “We hit a whale and the ship went down.”

“Tell as many boats as you can,” Rodriguez also urged. “Battery is dangerously low.”

On March 13, Rodriguez and three friends were 13 days into what was expected to be a three-week crossing from the Galápagos to French Polynesia on his 44-foot sailboat, Raindancer. Rodriguez was on watch, and he and the others were eating a vegetarian pizza for lunch around 1:30 p.m. In an interview with The Washington Post later conducted via satellite phone, Rodriguez said the ship had good winds and was sailing at about 6 knots when he heard a terrific BANG!

“The second pizza had just come out of the oven, and I was dipping a slice into some ranch dressing,” he said. “The back half of the boat lifted violently upward and to starboard.”

The sinking itself took just 15 minutes, Rodriguez said. He and his friends managed to escape onto a life raft and a dinghy. The crew spent just 10 hours adrift, floating about nine miles before a civilian ship plucked them from the Pacific Ocean in a seamless predawn maneuver. A combination of experience, technology and luck contributed to a speedy rescue that separates the Raindancer from similar catastrophes .

“There was never really much fear that we were in danger,” Rodriguez said. “Everything was in control as much as it could be for a boat sinking.”

It wasn’t lost on Rodriguez that the story that inspired Herman Melville happened in the same region. The ship Essex was also heading west from the Galápagos when it was rammed by a sperm whale in 1820, leaving the captain and some crew to endure for roughly three months and to resort to cannibalism before being rescued.

Coast Guard saves overboard cruise passenger in ‘Thanksgiving miracle’

There have been about 1,200 reports of whales and boats colliding since a worldwide database launched in 2007, said Kate Wilson, a spokeswoman for the International Whaling Commission. Collisions that cause significant damage are rare, the U.S. Coast Guard said, noting that the last rescue attributed to damage from a whale was the sinking of a 40-foot J-Boat in 2009 off Baja California, with that crew rescued by Coast Guard helicopter.

Alana Litz was the first to see what she now thinks was a Bryde’s whale as long as the boat. “I saw a massive whale off the port aft side with its side fin up in the air,” Litz said.

Rodriguez looked to see it bleeding from the upper third of its body as it slipped below the water.

Bianca Brateanu was below cooking and got thrown in the collision. She rushed up to the deck while looking to the starboard and saw a whale with a small dorsal fin 30 to 40 feet off that side, leading the group to wonder whether at least two whales were present.

Within five seconds of impact, an alarm went off indicating the bottom of the boat was filling with water, and Rodriguez could see it rushing in from the stern.

Water was already above the floor within minutes. Rodriguez made a mayday call on the VHF radio and set off the Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB). The distress signal was picked up by officials in Peru, who alerted the U.S. Coast Guard District 11 in Alameda, Calif., which is in charge of U.S. vessels in the Pacific.

The crew launched the inflatable life raft, as well as the dinghy, then realized they needed to drop the sails, so that line attaching the life raft didn’t snap as it got dragged behind the still-moving Raindancer.

Rodriguez grabbed his snorkel gear and a tarp and jumped into the water to see whether he could plug the holes, but it was futile. The area near the propeller shaft was badly punched in, he said.

Meanwhile, the others had gathered safety equipment, emergency gear and food. In addition to bottled water, they filled “water bottles, tea kettles and pots” before the salt water rose above the sink, Rodriguez said.

“There was no emotion,” Rodriguez recalled. “While we were getting things done, we all had that feeling, ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ but it didn’t keep us from doing what we needed to do and prepare ourselves to abandon ship.”

Rodriguez and Simon Fischer handed the items down to the women in the dinghy, but in the turmoil, they left a bag with their passports behind. They stepped into the water themselves just as the deck went under.

Rodriguez swam to the life raft, climbed in and looked back to see the last 10 feet of the mast sinking “at an unbelievable speed,” he said. As the Raindancer slipped away, he pulled a Leatherman from his pocket and cut the line that tethered the life raft to the boat after Litz noticed it was being pulled taut.

They escaped with enough water for about a week and with a device for catching rain, Rodriguez said. They had roughly three weeks worth of food, and a fishing pole.

The Raindancer “was well-equipped with safety equipment and multiple communication devices and had a trained crew to handle this open-ocean emergency until a rescue vessel arrived,” said Douglas Samp, U.S. Coast Guard Pacific area search and rescue program manager. He cautioned that new technology should not replace the use of an EPIRB, which has its own batteries.

Indeed, the one issue the crew faced was battery power. Their Iridium Go, a satellite WiFi hotspot, was charged to only 32 percent (dropping to 18 percent before the rescue). The phone that pairs with it was at 40 percent, and the external power bank was at 25 percent.

Rodriguez sent his first message to Joyce, who was sailing a boat on the same route about 180 miles behind. His second was to his brother, Roger, in Miami. He repeated most of what he had messaged to Joyce, adding: “Tell mom it’s going to be okay.”

Rodriguez’s confidence was earned. A 31-year-old from Tavernier, Fla., he had spent about 10 years working as a professional yacht captain, mate and engineer. He bought the Raindancer in 2021 and lived on her, putting sweat equity into getting the boat, built in 1976, ready for his dream trip.

Both he and Brateanu, 25, from Newcastle, England, have mariner survival training. Litz, 32, from Comox, British Columbia, was formerly a firefighter in the Canadian military. Fischer, 25, of Marsberg, Germany, had the least experience, but “is a very levelheaded guy,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez gave detailed information on their location and asked his brother to send a message via WhatsApp to Joyce, who has a Starlink internet connection that he checks more frequently than his Iridium Go. Because of his low battery, he told his brother that he was turning the unit off and would check it in two hours.

Rodriguez also activated a Globalstar SPOT tracker, which transmitted the position of the life raft every few minutes, and he broadcast a mayday call every hour using his VHF radio.

When he turned the Iridium Go back on at the scheduled time, there was a reply from Joyce: “We got you bud.”

As luck would have it, the Raindancer was sailing the same route as about two dozen boats participating in a round-the-world yachting rally called the World ARC. BoatWatch, a network of amateur radio operators that searches for people lost at sea, was also notified. And the urgent broadcast issued by the Coast Guard was answered by a commercial ship, Dong-A Maia, which said it was 90 miles to the south of Raindancer and was changing course.

“We have a bunch of boats coming. We got you brother,” Joyce typed.

“Can’t wait to see you guys,” Rodriguez replied.

Joyce told Rodriguez that the closest boat was “one day maximum.”

In fact, the closest boat was a 45-foot catamaran not in the rally. The Rolling Stones was only about 35 miles away. The captain, Geoff Stone, 42, of Muskego, Wis., had the mayday relayed to him by a friend sailing about 500 miles away. He communicated with Joyce via WhatsApp and with the Peruvian coast guard using a satellite phone to say they were heading to the last known coordinates.

In the nine hours it took to reach the life raft, Stone told The Post, he and the other three men on his boat were apprehensive about how the rescue was going to work.

“The seas weren’t terrible, but we’ve never done a search and rescue,” he said. He wasn’t sure whether they would be able to find the life raft without traveling back and forth.

He was surprised when Fischer spotted the Rolling Stones’ lights from about five miles away and made contact on the VHF radio.

Once it got closer, Rodriguez set off a parachute flare, then activated a personal beacon that transmits both GPS location and AIS (Automatic Identification System) to assist in the approach. Although the 820-foot Dong-A Maia, a Panamanian-flagged tanker, was standing by, it made more sense to be rescued by the smaller ship.

To board the Rolling Stones, the crew from the Raindancer transferred to the dinghy with a few essentials, then detached the life raft so it wouldn’t get caught in the boat’s propeller.

“We were 30 or 40 feet away when we started to make out each other’s figures. There was dead silence,” Rodriguez said. “They were curious what kind of emotional state we were in. We were curious who they were.”

“I yelled out howdy” to break the ice, he explained.

One by one, they jumped onto the transom. “All of a sudden, us four were sitting in this new boat with four strangers,” Rodriguez said.

The hungry sailors were given fresh bread, then were offered showers. The Rolling Stones crew gave their guests toothbrushes, deodorant and clothes. None even had shoes.

Rodriguez said he had tried not to think about losing his boat while the crisis was at hand. But, the first morning he woke up on Rolling Stones, it hit him. Not only had he lost his home and belongings, but he also felt as if he’d lost “a good friend.”

“I’ve worked so hard to be here, and have been dreaming of making landfall at the Bay of Virgins in the Marquesas on my own boat for about 10 years. And 1,000 nautical miles short, my boat sinks,” Rodriguez said.

The Rolling Stones is expected to arrive in French Polynesia on Wednesday, and Rodriguez is glad that he’s onboard.

“I feel very lucky and grateful that we were rescued so quickly,” he said. “We were in the right place at the right time to go down.”

Karen Schwartz is a writer based in Fort Collins, Colo. Follow her on Twitter @WanderWomanIsMe .

A previous version of this article misstated the size of the J-boat that sank in 2009. It was 40 feet.

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How we travel now: More people are taking booze-free trips — and airlines and hotels are taking note. Some couples are ditching the traditional honeymoon for a “buddymoon” with their pals. Interested? Here are the best tools for making a group trip work.

Bad behavior: Entitled tourists are running amok, defacing the Colosseum , getting rowdy in Bali and messing with wild animals in national parks. Some destinations are fighting back with public awareness campaigns — or just by telling out-of-control visitors to stay away .

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Unresolved Marine Incidents

The mission of boatwatch.org is to maintain a worldwide network of resources to aid mariners that are missing or overdue; have a boat stolen; or to whom urgent messages need to be relayed..

• Fisherman Missing from Carriacou

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Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Networks  BOLO for missing fisherman, Raymond Roseman, age 62, who left Bogles, Carriacou on March 8, 2024. Roseman set out alone in a 13 foot, white boat, equipped only with oars and no engine. Keep a sharp lookout, assist if...

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• Five Fishermen Missing Off Trinidad MV Amanda

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Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Networks  Five Fishermen Missing Off Trinidad MV Amanda BOLO for five fishermen missing since February 24, 2024. Last Saturday between 4 pm and 5 pm, boat captain David Seepaul, 60, his son Davanan, 35, Braiyer Ali, 21, Shiva...

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• Four Fishermen Missing off Venice Florida

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UPDATE: The USCG has suspended its search for the 4 missing fishermen as of Monday Feb. 19, 2024 at 8 PM pending new information.Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Networks  A BOLO has been issued for 4 missing fishermen that left Venice, Florida at 8 AM Saturday...

BOLO SV ANDIAMO Tonga to Fiji

Dec 22, 2023

UPDATE posted on Boat Watch Facebook Group December 22, 2023 It is with great regret that I am passing on the news that RCC New Zealand has called off their search for SV Andiamo. That’s all but an official proclamation that they’re lost at sea. For those of you in Tongawho knew them and would...

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Sep 1, 2023

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Networks  USCG requests assistance in looking for a missing boater, Scott Johnson, 47 years old and his dog, Baxter.  He was last seen by a neighbor on 8/22/23. Johnson reported that he was going out on his 23 foot sport fisher,...

BOLO SV DEFIANT Eastern North Pacific

Jul 22, 2023

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Networks  An AMVER alert has been issued by RCC Alameda for SV DEFIANT, a 60 foot Trimaran with one person on board. The last known posistion is: 12-13.48N 099-19.73W on July 13, 2023. UPDATE: July 28, 2023 - USCG Cutter Active is on...

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Jul 11, 2023

USCG San Juan has received a Missing Persons Report concerning Mr. Delron Francis, 37 years old, DOB April 28, 1986. He was on a voyage from Red Hook, St. Thomas USVI to Dominica on a catamaran. Family members have not heard from Mr. Francis since June 07, 2023. Report any sightings or information...

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Missing Diver Bahamas

Jun 20, 2023

Ryan Proulx, 31, was last seen near the Bimini Barge Wreck on Friday, a diving location roughly 1.5 miles west of Bimini Inlet, according to the Coast Guard. After aircraft crews searched over 673 square miles for Proulx, the Coast Guard suspended the search on Sunday afternoon. Authorities call...

SV Ocean Bound Overdue Mexico to San Diego, CA

Apr 15, 2023

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Fishermen Missing Off Puerto Rico North of Desecheo Island

Feb 27, 2023

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Net Coast Guard air and surface units are searching now for one of the  overdue fishermen in Mona Passage waters off Rincón, Puerto Rico. Overdue were Luis Eliel Guerra, 29, and Wilson Negrón, who reportedly departed from Rincón at...

MV Nidval in Need of Assistance NW of Cartagena, Colombia

Feb 25, 2023

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Feb 22, 2023

Tyler Doyle, 23 years old is still missing - South Carolina/North Carolina state line by the jetties in Little River, North Carolina.  Keep a sharp lookout in this area for Tyler Doyle. Report any sightings to nearest authorities. Here is a plea from the family. "My son Tyler Doyle was Duck...

FV NO THAT ONE Overdue St. Lucia

Feb 20, 2023

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BOLO for Two Men from Antigua – Dominica to St. Martin

Feb 14, 2023

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Net BOLO for two men missing from Antigua on a passage from Dominica to St. Martin. Tmoy Samuels and Maurice Mauriceson Valentine are from Antigua and 21 years old. They left on a sailboat from Dominica on February 3, 2023 and planned...

BOLO for SV with 11 POB Dominica to St. Martin or BVI’s

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BOLO for Two Fishermen Missing Grenada

Feb 5, 2023

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Net Family members in Grenada report that Kindon Alexander and Keithlon Lewis from St. Andrew, Grenada left Grenville February 5, 2023 and have not returned. They are in a new blue and white fishing skiff named Perfect Timing with a...

Urgent Message for SV Northern Lynx Cuba to Bahamas

Jan 20, 2023

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Drifting Red SV Alegria of Cowes Martinique

Dec 31, 2022

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets MRCC Fort de France is searching for SV Alegria of Cowes, a red sailboat drifting from Martinique since Dec. 30, 2022 at 1 PM. It is a cutter rig with blue mainsail sheets and could be within a 50 mile circle west of Fort de...

Fisherman Overboard Cape Sable Island Nova Scotia

Dec 26, 2022

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BOLO for Stolen SV KE ‘OLA KAI Colombia

Nov 19, 2022

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BOLO for Two Boaters Missing From Key West

Oct 17, 2022

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets Please be on the lookout for a 32 foot, light blue, Carver Power boat with two persons and a dog aboard that have been missing from Key West since Tuesday September 27 as Hurricane Ian passed. Missing are Omar Millet Torres and...

Sailor Missing On Passage From Massachusetts to Florida

Oct 8, 2022

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets Solo sailor Matthew Dennis, 22 years old, is missing on a 28 foot, 1976 Pearson, white hull, sailboat named "Sail Away". The sails have a navy blue trim. He left from Salem, Massachusetts on September 22, 2022 on a passage to...

Pilot Boat Overdue Dominica to St. Martin

Sep 10, 2022

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MV Three Amigos Missing West Coast of Florida

Aug 30, 2022

The Three Amigos a 39' Trojan Express is missing from the West Coast of Florida Specifically, it is missing from being at anchor in the area 1 mile West of Bonita Springs, between Barefoot Beach & Vanderbilt Beach just W of the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River.  GPS location when last...

SV Corsair Stolen Olympia Washington

Jun 3, 2022

Be On the Lookout for a stolen SV Corsair Boat Watch has received a report that SV Corsair was stolen near Boston Harbor Marina, Olympia, Washington. Report any sightings to the nearest Coast Guard or law enforcement agency.

MV Fair Chance Sinks Trinidad Crew Missing

Apr 3, 2022

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Man Missing From Union Island, St. Vincent & Grenadines

Mar 30, 2022

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets Dennis Leo Gellzeau  left Union Island, St. Vincent & the Grenadines in a small green boat with a 40 HP engine and is missing. No further information is available. Report any sightings to local authorities and assist if...

BOLO “SV EXODUS DEL CARIBE” Eastern Caribbean

Mar 27, 2022

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets SV "Exodus Del Caribe", formerly known as "SV Venus", with David Welles, 69 years old, on board is overdue on a voyage from St. Vincent to St. Lucia in the Eastern Caribbean. SV Exodus is a 38 foot sloop, navy blue hull, and is...

BOLO for Red & White Center Console Boat Miami

Mar 18, 2022

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets Bolo for a red and white, 29 foot,Wellcraft Scarab center console, white bimini, two outboards with one person on board. Florida Registration Fl 5345EP Last known position: 26-06.8N 080-01.0W (Offshore of Ft Lauderdale) AT...

BOLO For Missing SV Blue Rose, Cruz Bay, St. John, USVI

Mar 9, 2022

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets BOLO for stolen sailing vessel "BLUE ROSE", a 45 foot Freedom. The vessel was last seen on March 4, 2022 on a mooring at the mouth of Cruz Bay, St. John, USVI.  The vessel has a seven foot Radar mast mounted near the aft rail, is...

BOLO for 39 People Missing from Overturned Boat Bimini, Bahamas to Ft. Pierce, Florida

Jan 26, 2022

MIAMI — The Coast Guard suspended the search for the 34 people missing at sea, Thursday, at approximately 6 p.m., from a capsized vessel, pending new information. A good Samaritan reported to Sector Miami watchstanders, Tuesday, at 8 a.m. that he had rescued a man from a capsized 25-foot vessel...

Two Men Missing from British Virgin Islands on Boat “Gorda Sound”

Jan 17, 2022

Two men are missing in the British Virgin Islands that were last seen December 31, 2021 on a 36 foot Avanti powerboat, in Tortola, named, “GORDA SOUND”, which is also missing.The 36 foot Avanti, “GORDA SOUND” is described as having a white hull, white hard top, very distinctive white seats with...

$25,000 Reward re Missing Man Sugarloaf Key, Florida

Jan 12, 2022

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A 37 Foot SeaVee, made in Miami was stolen from Chubb Cay Bahamas January 11, 2022 at around noon. If you have information please call Corporal Smith @ 242-559-3969 or the nearest Coast Guard authorities.

BOLO for Man Overboard from FV Marza Guadeloupe, Eastern Caribbean

Jan 3, 2022

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets MRCC Fort de France has issued a lookout for a man overboard January 20, 2022 from the FV Marza in the vicinity of 17-42.4N 062-30.0W, near Gruadeloupe, Eastern Caribbean Sea. Vessels in the area are requested to keep a sharp...

BOLO For Boston Whaler Driggs Hill South Andros to Nassau, Bahamas

Jan 1, 2022

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets BASRA is looking for a 17' Boston Whaler, 1 pob, left Driggs Hill South Andros for Nassau on 27 December and has not arrived.  All vessels please keep lookout and render assistance or report any sightings to BASRA

BOLO for Two Men Missing After Vessel Sinks near Cedar Key Florida

Dec 30, 2021

UPDATE January 2, 2022 Coast Guard suspends search for missing boater near Cedar Key ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.— The Coast Guard suspended search efforts Sunday evening for a missing boater one mile offshore of Cedar Key. Deceased is David Savioe, 33, and missing is Michael Sedor, 39. A...

BOLO for FV Big Bro Overdue St. Lucia, Eastern Caribbean

Dec 29, 2021

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets As of January 3, 2022 - MRCC Fort de France advises this is an active lookout for FV Big Bro. MRCC Fort de France has issued a lookout for FV Big Bro which is overdue Castries Harbor, Saint Lucia, Eastern Caribbean.  FV Big Brow...

MV Strong Trinity with 11 Crew Missing Since Cyclone Odette Cebu, Philippines

Dec 27, 2021

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Urgent Bolo for Man Overboard Yucatan Channel

Dec 21, 2021

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets URGENT BOLO FOR MAN OVERBOARD FROM TANKER IN YUCATAN CHANNEL. On 20 Dec 2021, sometime between morning and noon, a 31 year old worker on the tanker City Island went overboard near position 22-00N / 085-00 W in the Yucatan...

Epirb Activated 569 NM Off Barbados

Dec 17, 2021

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets On December 17, 2021, a EPIRB was activated at 13-21-00N 049-47-50W AT 162315Z, which is 569  NM East of Barbados registered to a 17 Meter Vessel Oceans Carisma.  Boatwatch determined that the vessel and the owner of Oceans...

Boat Found Drifting off Carriacou with Dead Bodies

Dec 13, 2021

by The New Today December 12, 2021 A small boat with about three to four bodies believed to be Hispanics has been discovered in the waters off Grenada’s sister island of Carriacou. According to a well-placed source, the boat was found drifting by a fisherman from Petite Martinique in waters just...

BOLO for Stolen Boat, MV “Gina Page”, Pompano Beach Florida

Dec 7, 2021

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Distress Call Relayed Over HF SSCA Radio KPK, Papua, New Guinea, South Pacific

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets UPDATE: November 7, 2021 10:18 Eastern 050812Z DEC 21 HYDROPAC 3506/21(73). BISMARCK SEA. PAPUA NEW GUINEA. DNC 05. 23 FOOT VESSEL CAPSIZED IN VICINITY 03-02.22S 142-06.72E ON 04 DEC. NUMEROUS PERSONS REMAIN MISSING. VESSELS IN...

BOLO: SV La Mouette Stolen From St. Vincent

Nov 29, 2021

SV "La Mouette" Stolen Boat Watch has received a report of a stolen Lagoon 38, white with a blue stack pack/lazy bag. The yachts name is "La Mouette". It left the mooring ball in Blue Lagoon, St Vincent at around 6pm yesterday Sunday November 27th. This has been reported to SVG Coast Guard. Report...

USCG Suspends BOLO For Missing Boater North of Frying Pan Shoals, North Carolina

Nov 28, 2021

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets The Coast Guard is searching for a 44-year-old man in the vicinity of Frying Pan Shoals, North Carolina, Saturday. The man departed the Federal Point Yacht Club on Monday 22 Nov 2021, on his 19-foot SeaCraft vessel. Sector North...

BOLO from SV AZORA Adrift north of Clearwater, Florida

Oct 30, 2021

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BOLO for SV “ARIANE” Passage from Sicily, via Greece to Tortuga Marina, Varna, Bulgaria

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Oct 11, 2021

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BOLO for MV Guadalupe Returning From Aid in Haiti to Mexico

Oct 3, 2021

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets A BOLO has been issued for the MV Guadalupe, an 83 foot Yacht Club Playa Company boat, returning from giving aid in Haiti. The last known position on September 28, 2021 at 12:35 PM, recorded on a spot tracker was 130 miles...

Two Men Arrested after 552 kg of Suspected Cocaine Seized from a Burning Sailboat off Coast of N.S.Halifax, Canada – One Escapes from Hospital

Sep 13, 2021

Samantha LongCTVNewsAtlantic.ca writer @samjlong Contact Published Thursday, September 2, 2021 4:16PM ADTLast Updated Thursday, September 2, 2021 4:54PM ADT Mounties say they have arrested two men – one of whom was wanted by police – after seizing 552 kilograms of suspected cocaine from a burning...

BOLO: SV Secret Plans Stolen from Halifax Harbor, Canada Sets Off PLB in Eye of Hurricane Larry

Sep 11, 2021

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets URGENT BOLO: USCG Rescue Coordination Center Boston received a Personal Locator Beacon Alert on September 10, 2021 with Canadian registration located 550NM E of Cape Cod, MA and 340NM SE of Halifax, NS.  PLB is registered to a...

SV Queal Activates EPIRB, Assisted by LPG Tanker Arago & JRCC Australia

Aug 26, 2021

On August 26, 2021, JRCC Australia advised Boat Watch that they have been coordinating the response  to the EPIRB activation by SV Queal. Overnight LPG Tanker ARAGO accompanied the sailing vessel and intends to transfer the sailor at first light if weather conditions allow it. The EPIRB was...

BOLO for Two Persons in the Water from Downed Helicopter, Albemarle Sound, Alligator River, North Carolina

Jul 21, 2021

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets BOLO for two persons possibly in the water or debris from a helicopter that went down July 19, 2021 in Albemarle Sound, North Carolina. Debris and personal items have been found near the Alligator River. Keep a sharp lookout for...

USCG Suspends Search for Diver Off Mayport/Jacksonville, Florida

Jul 11, 2021

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BOLO for F/V Flipper Missing From Bonaire, ABC’s

Jul 7, 2021

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets  A BOLO has been issued for F/V Flipper missing from Bonaire as of July 6, 2021.It is approximately 16 feet with a 25 HP outboard. The interior of the vessel looks to be white, while the exterior hull is blue. Report all...

Search for Missing Boater near Culebra, Puerto Rico Suspended

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3 Jamaican Sailors Missing on 28 foot S/V “God Alone”

Jul 2, 2021

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets Three Jamaican Sailors Missing on 28 Foot Sailboat BOLO for S/V “God Alone” with Captain Keron Powell, 43 years of age and two unknown mates. They left Port Antonio point June 6, 2021 to go fishing and have not been heard from...

Fishing Vessel Eden Missing From Antiqua, Last Seen off Barbuda

Jun 28, 2021

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets A Bolo has been issued for F/V Eden which left Antigua, Eastern Caribbean on Thursday June 24, 2021 at around noon with two men on board. They last had signals to their phones north of Barbuda. The 25 foot pirogue is light blue...

BOLO for Debris or Persons in the Water 55NM WSW of the Dry Tortugas, Florida after EPIRB Activation

Jun 15, 2021

UPDATE: June 17, 2021 The USCG has called off the search regarding this EPIRB activation. The EPIRB was unregistered but with good batteries.  Please register and update all safety devices. Notification and float plans should have people that know you and your boat very well.Broadcast Version For...

Search Continues on land and sea for Sailor Tomas Gimeno and Anna, age one after Olivia Gimeno’s body found at sea Tenerife Spain

Jun 11, 2021

Body found in bag in sea off Tenerife confirmed as missing girl Olivia Gimeno taken by her father Olivia Gimeno, six, and her sister Anna, one, were taken by their father Tomas without permission on 27 April 2021.  By Sky News Friday 11 June 2021 15:11, UK   Image:Olivia Gimeno, six (right)...

Experience Sailor, Britt Taylor Lost Overboard At Sea

Jun 5, 2021

Britt Taylor, 52, is believed to have fallen overboard 170 miles east of the Bahamas. Photo courtesy of Dick Enerson. Chesapeake Bay Magazine by Meg Walburn Viviano BAY BULLETIN  SEARCH CALLED OFF FOR WOMAN LOST AT SEA SAILING TO ANNAPOLIS June 7, 2021 The Coast Guard has suspended its search for...

USCG Searching for 10 people in the water, 2 deceased, 8 rescued off Key West

May 28, 2021

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets The US Coast Guard is searching for 10 people missing at sea, after being reported Thursday, after the rescue of eight people and the recovery of two bodies, 16 miles south of Key West.  All boats should keep a sharp lookout and...

Eight Persons Missing on 23 foot Bayliner from Nassau, Bahamas to the US

May 19, 2021

BOLO For 23 Foot Bayliner with Eight Persons On Board Bahamian Captain Tarran Maynard, 35 years old and seven Dominicans are missing on a passage from Nassau to the US on a 23 foot Bayliner motorboat, white in color, with a blue Bimini, two 350 Yamaha engines and no name on the boat. The boat had...

BOLO for Overdue Boat on passage Key West, Fl to Guanaja, Honduras

May 16, 2021

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets Emergency BOLO for Overdue Boat on passage Key West, Fl to Guanaja, Honduras BOLO for two persons on board M/V Cats Paw on passage from Key West Florida to Guanaja, Honduras. Cat's Paw is described as 30 foot Rampage Sport Fish,...

SV “Good Luck” Grounded On East Coast Of Montserrat

May 14, 2021

CROSS Antilles Guyane / MRCC Fort-de-France The S/V "GOOD LUCK" is grounded on the east coast of Montserrat. Nobody on board. We don't know what happened. Bermuda or UK flag boat, 60ft, we do not know the current owner and are looking for information about this vessel (owner's name, last calls,...

Search Suspended for 8 Crew Still Missing From Seacor Power lift boat

Apr 14, 2021

UPDATE: April 19, 2021 Re Louisiana Rescue Operation: Coast Guard is suspending search for remaining 8 Seacor Power crewmembers NEW ORLEANS — The Coast Guard is suspending its search Monday for the remaining missing Seacor Power lift boat crewmembers 8 miles south of Port Fourchon. Eight crew...

BOLO: Power Boat Stolen From Grand Cay Abaco, Bahamas

Apr 11, 2021

Non Emergency BOLO for Boat Stolen In Grand Cay Bahamas A 23 foot Parker power boat was stolen March 30, 2021 from Grand Cay, Abaco in the Bahamas. Report all sightings to the Royal Bahamas Police Force or your nearest Coast Guard. The owner Russell Mc Garrett can be contacted at (242-817-0209).

BOLO: Two Bahamians Missing in Skiff Off Long Island, Bahamas

Apr 7, 2021

Update February 23, 2021 SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Coast Guard air and surface units assisted a distressed sailing vessel Monday that was taking on water with eight people onboard in the Caribbean Sea, approximately 80 nautical miles south of Santa Isabel, Puerto Rico.The Zoma, a 46-foot Danish...

Fishing Vessel Adrift Off Dominica

Mar 24, 2021

British Sailor Sarm Heslop Missing from SV Siren Song, Frank Bay, St. John, USVI

Mar 15, 2021

Virgin Island Police and USCG authorities are seeking any information on the disappearance of British sailor, Sarm Joan Lillian Heslop on March 7, 2021, from the charter catamaran, Siren Song located in Frank Bay, St. John, USVI. Sarm Heslop is described as 41 years old and from Southhampton.Ryan...

SV Barnacle Adrift, 3 Rescued by Cargo Ship, Mexico, Cuba

Mar 10, 2021

One Person Onboard 4 Meter Boat Overdue Salisbury Dominica

Feb 26, 2021

BOLO: For Two Persons Aboard Small Boat Off Jeremie, Haiti

SV Rebecca Souimanga Adrift And Desmasted

Jan 21, 2021

UPDATE: January 22, 2021: The owner of this sailing vessel advises that the cargo ship that rescued him was the Harvest Frost. The sailor expresses his gratitude to the ship and all involved in the rescue. The SV is a Belgium flagged boat....

Man Overboard From MV Baltic Klipper 1,200 Miles NE of Bermuda

Jan 8, 2021

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets BOLO:January 8, 2021, at 9 PM, USCG RCC Norfolk confirmed that a man was overboard from the container ship, MV Baltic Klipper at 35-44N 041-30W. This is 1,200 miles NE of Bermuda. Lookout, assist if possible. The USCG is...

BOLO: Colombian Coast Guard Conducting Rescue Near Sapzurro

Jan 5, 2021

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets BOLO ISSUED AT 0134 HRS UTC, 5 JAN 2021 Search and rescue operations in progress by the Colombian Coast Guard. Five persons missing in vicinity of 08-35.76N 077-17.10W. This position is  6 NM SE OF SAPZURRO, COLOMBIA on the...

10 Meter SV Adrift and Disables Off Montserrat, Eastern Caribbean

Jan 3, 2021

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets BOLO: UPDATE January 10, 2021-  The adrift 30 foot Sailing Vessel spotted previously, 12 NM WSW of Montserrat in the Eastern Caribbean has been spotted again at: 16-11.12N and 065-24.25W. The vessel is 10 meters in length with a...

SV EXODE Stolen From Nassau, Bahamas In August 2020 Spotted In December 2020

Dec 31, 2020

UPDATE: 31 DEC 2020: The S/V EXODE was spotted in Nassau Harbor today.   Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network & Other Nets There is an active lookout for a stolen sailboat from Nassau, Bahamas. The stolen vessel is a 1976 Irwin sloop named EXODE, 37 feet in length, which...

BOLO: Twenty Persons Aboard 29 Foot Mako Missing Bimini to Lake Worth, Florida

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets The USCG RCC Miami has an active search for a 29 foot Mako cuddy cabin, blue and white in color, and powered by two (2) 250 HP Yamaha two stroke outboard engines. The vessel was believed to have departed Bimini, Bahamas at 0700...

BOLO: Man Overboard West Indian Ocean, Madagascar

Dec 21, 2020

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets BOLO for man overboard from Vessel Egret Oasis in the vicinity of trackline joining 25-44S 048-26E, 25-50S 048-14E in the West Indian Ocean, Madagascar. Vessels in the vicinity are requested to keep a sharp lookout, assist if...

BOLO For Three Fishermen Missing In The Bua Waters of Fiji, South Pacific

Dec 14, 2020

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets BOLO for three fishermen are missing from the Bua Waters of Fiji, South Pacific. Their boat is described as white and 29 feet. Fiji Navy Search and Rescue Centre, have been searching the Bua waters since the report was lodged by...

JRCC Australia Looking For Man Overboard From HWA Hung

Dec 11, 2020

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets 0615 Hrs 11 DEC 2020: JRCC Australia is reporting a man overboard from the vessel HWA HUNG in position 10-04S / 081-35E. All vessels in the vicinity are requested to keep a sharp lookout, assist if possible, and report any...

BOLO: Man Overboard FV Sea Goddess Hawaii

Dec 10, 2020

UPDATE 11 DEC 2020: HONOLULU — The Coast Guard has suspended the active search for the missing mariner who fell overboard approximately 150-miles southeast of Big Island, Friday evening. The mariner, a Republic of Kiribati native, remains missing. “Our crews and partners worked diligently, but...

BOLO: Man Overboard From Tourist Boat Caloosahatchee River Near Ft. Myers

Dec 5, 2020

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets BOLO: USCG is searching on the Caloosahatchee River for a man who fell overboard from a tourist boat on Friday night at around 8:15 PM. USCG advised they are searching in the area of Marker 64 on the River near the Midpoint...

BOLO: Sailor Travis Gates Missing Guatamala, Honduras, Belize

Dec 2, 2020

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets BOLO (Be On Lookout): Travis Gates, white male, age 45 is missing from his sailing vessel "Avenir" on a passage from El Golfete, also known as Texan Bay on the Rio Dulce River, Guatemala to Placencia, Belize on Monday November...

Coast Guard Suspends Search For Missing Fishermen Off Massachusetts

Nov 23, 2020

UPDATE:0618 HRS EST 24 NOV 2020: BOSTON — The Coast Guard suspended the active search for four missing fishermen off the coast of Massachusetts, 5:22 p.m., Tuesday. “The decision to suspend a search is never an easy one. Our crews conducted searches continuously for over 38 hours covering an area...

UPDATE: URGENT BOLO: Search For Missing Diver Off Trinidad – Reinaldo Novoa

Nov 13, 2020

UPDATE: Nov. 17, 2020                      *URGENT HELP NEEDED* Reinaldo Novoa, Retired Nurse and pharmacy representative, father to two boys, married to Jasema Mungalsingh, grandfather to 7 grandchildren,*went missing off the coast of Mayaro while doing an open dive, at 3:45pm yesterday. He is a...

Search Suspended Two Persons Missing From Overturned Boat, Beaufort, N.C.

Nov 11, 2020

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network and Other Nets: BOLO Canceled: The US Coast Guard suspended its search for two persons in the water, after an overturned 35 foot recreational vessel was discovered near Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina on November 10, 2020. Anyone with...

BOLO For Missing Fisherman Off Montauk, New York

Nov 8, 2020

UPDATE 1532 HRS 08 NOV 2020: Coast Guard suspends search for missing fisherman off Montauk, N.Y. NEW YORK — The Coast Guard suspended the search Sunday afternoon for a missing fisherman who went overboard 16 nautical miles south of Montauk Point, New York, Saturday....

Hazzard To Navigation 172 miles Off Cape Hatteras After Sailors Rescued

Nov 4, 2020

BROADCAST VERSION FOR MARITIME MOBILE SERVICE NETWORK AND OTHER RADIO NETS UPDATE 0745 HRS, 06 NOV 2020.  THE USCG RCC NORFOLK ADVISED THE PRESENT POSITION OF THE ABANDONED S/V BALI HAI At 0146 hrs UTC 06 NOV 2020 WAS LOCATED AT 36 01.1 N / 071 58 W. This vessel should be considered a hazard to...

BOLO For Scarab LOS ALBERTOS With 5 Persons Off Colon, Panama

Oct 12, 2020

BROADCAST VERSION FOR MARITIME MOBILE SERVICE NETWORK AND OTHER RADIO NETS BOLO for a 33 foot wellcraft Scarab with the name of "LOS ALBERTOS" with five (5) persons on board (POB) 25 miles W/NW of Colon, Panama. The vessel was last seen on 10 October 2020 near Volcan Reef in position 9 32.131 N /...

BOLO for SV Maserval Stolen From Cap d’Agde, France and Seen in the Balearic Islands, Spain

Sep 12, 2020

BROADCAST VERSION FOR MARITIME MOBILE SERVICE NETWORK AND OTHER RADIO NETS All vessels are requested to be on the lookout (BOLO) for the S/V MASERVAL, a Sun Odyssey 33i which was stolen from Cap d'Agde is located on France's Mediterranean coast at 43 17 N / 03 31 E. The S/V MASERVAL is a Jeanneau...

SV RANA II Stolen – Last Seen In Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands

ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE MARITIME MOBILE SERVICE NET All vessels in the Mediterranean are requested to keep a sharp lookout for the S/V RANA II. This vessel is a 1974, 48 foot Olympic sailboat (Made in Greece) which was stolen in Marseille, France on 24 JANUARY 2020. A surveillance camera confirmed...

Two Missing Sailors From SV Dancing Brave Adrift Off St. Barthelemy Island, Eastern Caribbean in Dinghy

Sep 3, 2020

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network & Other Nets MRCC Fort De France, Martinique, has asked Boatwatch.org for assistance in locating two persons in an overdue inflatable dinghy, brand is HIGHFIELD, and length is 2.50 meters, white hull, with pale grey pontoons, powered by a...

New York, Bermuda, BVI’s SV Tally Ho! Boat Watch

Jul 24, 2020

**********UPDATE 23 JULY 2020***************************** While speaking with USCG RCC Boston regarding a different matter, it was learned the EPIRB for the S/V TALLY HO was located. Boatwatch was not aware of that development. Here is what RCC Boston told us: On 20MAR2020 the EPIRB from the...

Search Called Off for SV OHANA-ULI Off Tanzania/Seychelles

Jul 22, 2020

UPDATE July 24, 2020 From the family of Del and Craig Mc Ewan. To our dear friends and family, It is with a heavy heart that after every effort possible has been made we need to inform you that the search for Del and Craig McEwan has been called off with no recovery being made. We would like to...

BOLO Crew Member Missing Tanker Hellas Gladiator 400 Miles Off NC

Jun 24, 2020

UPDATE 26 June 2020: Cancel Bolo: Coast Guard suspends search for missing tanker ship crew member near Cape Hatteras, North  Carolina ************** Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network & Other Nets The Coast Guard is searching for a crew member of a tanker ship approximately...

Mega Yacht Captain Bob Peel lost at sea on his Sailboat KALAYAAN in the Caribbean

Apr 3, 2020

Veteran Sailor Lost At Sea From the Royal Gazette of Bermuda Owain Johnston-Barnes Published Apr 8, 2020 at 8:00 am (Updated Apr 8, 2020 at 7:37 am) A veteran sailor with close ties to Bermuda is missing in the Caribbean. Bob Peel, the former captain of the Boadicea, the superyacht owned by Reg...

Search Supended For Survivors of Small Plane Crash Emerald Isle North Carolina

Mar 24, 2020

Coast Guard suspends search for two missing persons associated with plane crash near Emerald Isle, North Carolina U.S. Coast Guard sent this bulletin at 03/24/2020 09:14 PM EDT PORTSMOUTH, Va. — The Coast Guard suspended its search Tuesday evening for two missing persons involved in a Cessna...

BOLO For Missing Sailor 32 Miles NW Marco Island

Mar 10, 2020

UPDATE: March 13,2020, USCG has advised that the search for Mr. Jim Clauson has been suspended pending further developments. Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network & Other Nets The USCG St Petersburg, FL has asked the public's assistance in locating Mr. Jim Clauson, age 73, who...

U K Captain K.P. Pearson of SV “UMZUNGU” Contact Trinidad Coast Guard

Mar 7, 2020

UPDATE 15:30 Eastern Time 08 Mar 2020: Anne Lloyd provided the following resolution to this case: it is a British flagged yacht called UMZUNGU call sign MNYT2; MMSI 235 038 556 owned by Mr K. P. Pearson. Please see the attached photo with the UK SSR Number for the SV UMZUNGU.  It is SSR 123188. If...

MV ROME Overdue Panama City Florida to Ft. Myers

Feb 26, 2020

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network & Other Nets UPDATE: 0645 hrs, 26 Feb 2020: USCG RCC Miami advised the search has been suspended for the M/V ROME. Update February 20, 2020 - U.S. Coast Guard Rescue Coordination Center (RCC) Miami, FL has asked for assistance in locating...

Urgent Watch For Unknown Vessel In Distress Willmington, N. Carolina

Feb 11, 2020

Update- February 13, 2020 - Coast Guard suspends search. WILMINGTON, N.C. — The Coast Guard suspended its search on Thursday after an unregistered emergency position indicating radio beacon alert lead responders to debris approximately 126 miles southeast off the coast of Wilmington, North...

Four Missing At Sea Bahamas to Jamaica

Jan 31, 2020

The M/V Fatal Attraction and Crew of Four Missing For Three Years Between Bahamas and Jamaica The family of four missing men, three from Jamaica, and one from the Bahamas has asked Boatwatch.org to list them as missing since 06 Jan 2017. We know it's been a long time, but listing them...

Missing Crew Off Tanker “Star Aquila” Dauphin, Alabama

Jan 23, 2020

BOLO Cancelled.  Coast Guard searching for missing person near Dauphin Island, AL NEW ORLEANS — The Coast Guard is searching for one person who went missing aboard the vessel Star Aquila, Thursday, approximately 12 nautical miles south of Dauphin Island, Alabama. Watchstanders at Coast Guard...

BOLO Canceled: Search Suspended For 2 Missing Mariners In Pamlico Sound, NC

Jan 8, 2020

January 9, 2020 Coast Guard suspends search for 2 missing mariners in Pamlico Sound, North Carolina Watch the above video of the USCG rescue swimmers. PAMLICO COUNTY, N.C. — The Coast Guard suspended its search Thursday afternoon for two mariners who were reported missing after the commercial...

SV AVRIO Found Off Jamaica

Dec 20, 2019

Broadcast Version For Maritime Mobile Service Network & Other Nets UPDATE: This BROADCAST VERSION IS VALID 29 JAN 2020 The SV Avrio was initially sighted by the US coast guard on 27 January at 01:27 local time (06:27 UK) 71 nautical miles from Ocho Rios which is in on the north coast Jamaica....

SV Simba Found on Reef in the Red Sea

Dec 13, 2019

Update: January 7, 2020 Out of respect, and at the specific request of the family, Boatwatch.org has not been providing additional information on the website. If anyone has pertinent information, or may be able to help or assist the family in any way, please contact Boat Watch at...

Search For Missing Fishermen off Puerto Rico

Nov 26, 2019

Update: USCG discontinues search. Coast Guard continues search for missing fisherman off “Caza y Pesca” Beach in Arecibo, Puerto Rico SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Coast Guard rescue crews continue to search Tuesday for a missing fisherman in waters off “Caza y Pesca” Beach in Arecibo, Puerto Rico....

Bayliner H.M.S. Me II Missing N.Carolina to Norfolk

Nov 25, 2019

Update: Active USCG Search Cancelled USCG CANCELS SEARCH FOR M/V H.M.S. Me II Valid 25 NOV 2019 PORTSMOUTH, Va. — The Coast Guard has suspended its search for a 50-year-old man who was reported missing while transiting from New York to Florida aboard his 35-foot recreational vessel, Monday....

Sailboat Iona, Peter Rang, Missing Bermuda to Azores

Nov 13, 2019

UPDATE: New information confirms that there is a  second person on board, Tom Cleeren, from Belgium. Also, RCC Bermuda confirms a departure date of September 6, 2019. RCC Azores has no record of the IONA arriving. SV IONA, a Hunter Legend 37.5, with experienced single-hander sailor Peter Rang and...

Two 30-Foot Boats Adrift Between Bahamas Vero Beach

Oct 21, 2019

The U.S. Coast Guard Rescue Coordination Center, Miami, Florida has asked Boatwatch.org assistance in locating the owner(s) of two overturned vessels located  on 20 OCT 2019 by the M/V ACE INDEPENDENCE and USCG  in position 27 54.5 N / 079 15.8 W, or approximately 60 NM East of Vero Beach, FL, and...

Estonian Sailor Mysteriously Disappears, Honduras

Oct 17, 2019

Update: Tribute to Andreas Sepsaka, SV Salacia Watch the beautiful tribute to Andreas made by another sailor at the location where Andreas and his boat disappeared. In the early hours of 11 June 2019, two separate EPIRB activations were received from the S / V SALACIA with only sailor ANDREAS...

SV Blue Highways, 44’ Beneteau Oceanis missing, presumed stolen

Oct 3, 2019

The S/V BLUE HIGHWAYS is a 44’ Beneteau Oceanis which was missing and presumed stolen from a private mooring located in Leverick Bay, Virgin Gorda, BVI.  The vessel was last seen on the mooring buoy on April 6, 2019 and missing on April 7, 2019. This boat is not to be confused with the S/V BLUE...

Loss of Firefighters off Cape Canaveral, FL

Aug 18, 2019

Update: Family, Community Honor Life of Missing Jacksonville Firefighter Read the article at https://www.news4jax.com/news/celebration-of-life-this-morning-for-missing-firefighter Update: "That was a very devastating time": Wife of missing Jacksonville firefighter opens up about husband and search...

SV Trinavis Missing, Caribbean

Jul 4, 2019

July 2019, Friends of Rocco Acocella advised SSCA KPK radio service that he was overdue on a passage between St. Maarten and Barranquilla, Colombia. He left St. Maarten on June 17th, on his 8-meter trimaran, a Telstar MK II and intended to arrive in Barranquilla on June 28 or 29. His intention was...

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New Jersey men lost in the Atlantic Ocean for 10 days on Atrevida II recount their experience: 'Small miracle'

Kevin hyde, 65, and joe ditomasso, 76, in the atrevida ii were spotted in the atlantic ocean by the silver muna.

'Atrevida II' crew stranded after sailing from New Jersey were rescued by tanker

The crew of a tanker, The Silver Muna, spotted and safely rescued Kevin Hyde, 65, and Joe Ditomasso, 76, who were missing for 10 days after their vessel, the Atrevida II, was pushed out to sea by a storm and lost power. Video by crew of Silver Muna.

Two men and a dog who were lost at sea for 10 days after they set sail from New Jersey to Florida, said they relied on prayer and were miraculously saved.

Kevin Hyde, 65, and Joe Ditomasso, 76, were spotted by a tanker in the Atlantic Ocean after they set sail on Hyde's sailboat, named the "Atrevida II," on Dec. 3 and were not heard from again.

The two men said during a press conference Wednesday evening on Staten Island they were swept off course by a storm — but survived with a little faith.

A photo illustration of Kevin Hyde, 65, and Joe Ditomasso, 76, who were rescued by a tanker after they were lost at sea for 10 days.  (U.S. Coast Guard)

"It's just kind of a small miracle that we were found at all," Hyde said, according to FOX 5 New York.

NEW JERSEY SAILBOAT WITH 2 ABOARD GOES MISSING AFTER NEVER REACHING FLORIDA DESTINATION

"All I asked the Lord was to see my granddaughter," Ditomasso added during the presser.

The two men and Ditomasso’s 13-year-old Bichon Poodle mix, who was on the sailboat with them, made a stop in Oregon Inlet, North Carolina, and then were not heard from again after a storm with mountain-sized waves pushed them further out to sea, they said.

"A huge storm blew up and blew us off course," Hyde said.

The crew from the Hong Kong-flagged tanker, Silver Muna, recovers two men and their dog that were aboard a sailboat that had been adrift for several days in the Atlantic Ocean, Dec. 13 2022.  (Courtesy video by the crew of the Silver Muna)

The sailboat lost power and ran out of fuel, they said. Its mast was also destroyed.

WOMAN'S BODY FOUND IN TRASH BAG OFF FLORIDA'S GULF COAST: FBI

Ditomasso added: "40-foot seas — there were mountains, I was watching them."

The men never reached their intended destination in Florida and their families reported them missing on Dec. 11.

The crew from the Hong Kong-flagged tanker, Silver Muna, located the missing sailboat and its crew that had been adrift for 10 days in the Atlantic Ocean, Dec. 13 2022.  (Courtesy video by the crew of the Silver Muna)

Kevin Hyde, 65, and Joe Ditomasso, 76, on the Atrevida II, being rescued by the tanker, The Silver Muna. (U.S. Coast Guard)

Atrevida II from Cape May, New Jersey (U.S. Coast Guard Mid-Atlantic)

The U.S. Coast Guard launched a large search-and-rescue effort, involving planes, helicopters, and boats to cover more than 21,000 square miles from Massachusetts to Florida. A U.S. Navy cruiser also assisted in the search, as well as a number of commercial and recreational vessels, FOX 5 New York reported.

FAMILY OF MISSING NC BOATER, A SPECIAL FORCES VET, BELIEVES HE IS ALIVE: 'HE IS OUT THERE'

After they were missing for 10 days, the two men were found by a tanker, The Silver Muna.

"The #USCG, with assistance from the tanker vessel Silver Muna, located the #boat 214 miles east of Delaware," the Coast Guard said. "The Atrevida II was found to be without fuel and power, rendering their radios and navigation equipment inoperable."

"We were waving and stuff like that because by that time, my mast was down, all systems were mute, we were just kind of hanging on to the boat," Hyde recalled. "It's like finding a needle in a haystack in this situation."

COAST GUARD USED 'DIGITAL TOOL' TO MORE EFFICIENTLY MASS DENY RELIGIOUS VAX EXEMPTIONS, REPUBLICANS ALLEGE

Captain Neerah Chaudhary said he too was praying for the men, who he safely rescued.

"We rescued them with our crane, cargo net," Chaudhary said, according to the report. "I was praying, 'God save them, our rescue should be successful.'"

The two men aboard the Atrevida II were recovered after being spotted by the crew of the Silver Muna and later transferred to Coast Guard Station New York where they were reunited with family and friends. (Courtesy video by the crew of the Silver Muna)

Kevin Hyde, 65, and Joe Ditomasso, 76, after they were rescued after being stranded on Ditomasso's sailboat named "Atrevida II." (U.S. Coast Guard)

Chaudhary brought the men and the dog into New York Harbor, where the Coast Guard reunited with their families. 

"This is an excellent example of the maritime community’s combined efforts to ensure safety of life at sea," said Cmdr. Daniel Schrader, the spokesperson for Coast Guard Atlantic Area. "We are overjoyed with the outcome of the case and look forward to reuniting Mr. Hyde and Mr. Ditomasso with their family and friends. "

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He added: "We also want to highlight the importance of proper safety equipment and preparedness when going to sea. Having an emergency position indicating radio beacon, or ‘EPIRB’, allows mariners to immediately make contact with first responders in an emergency."

As for the men, they said they are happy to be home and are looking forward to celebrating Christmas.

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Hundreds of ships go missing each year, but we have the technology to find them

Senior Lecturer in Astronomy, University of Leicester

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Nigel Bannister works for the University of Leicester. He received funding from US Office of Naval Research - Global to conduct this work.

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The seas are vast. And they claim vessels in significant numbers. The yachts Cheeki Rafiki , Niña , Munetra , Tenacious are just some of the more high-profile names on a list of lost or capsized vessels which grows by hundreds each year.

Yet it took the disappearance of flight MH370, now declared lost with no survivors , to demonstrate how difficult it can be to find something in the open ocean. As the search continued, incredulity grew: exactly how, in the 21st century, is it possible to lose a 64-metre aircraft?

There are great unknowns at sea: planes and boats go missing. Illegal fishing and piracy are easy to conduct – and small vessels can smuggle powerful weapons and dangerous individuals. The technology to improve this situation already exists, we just need to make better use of it.

The view from above

Satellites provide the vantage point necessary to monitor large areas of ocean. Spacecraft carrying synthetic aperture radar (SAR) can provide high-quality images with resolution down to a metre, regardless of the weather. But the relatively small number of spacecraft equipped with SAR, and the dawn-to-dusk orbits which most occupy, also limit the times of day when they can provide coverage.

To offer comprehensive monitoring at sea, we need to bring together different types of imaging, including radar and photographic images in the human-visible wavelength. This is often overlooked for maritime purposes due to the effects of cloud, rain, and darkness that limit its use. But there are enough satellites with the capability that could provide excellent coverage.

Detail and coverage

The two key requirements for effective monitoring are high spatial resolution (good detail) and a large field of view (wide area). One tends to come at the expense of the other, so that a device – whether it is a camera, satellite or radar – capable of detecting small vessels will usually only be able to scan an area a few tens of kilometres wide, making it both unlikely that the search area of interest has been recorded and rendering subsequent searches very slow.

But the situation is changing. The number of imagers is growing rapidly. In our recently published study , we identified 54 satellites carrying 85 sensors which offer useful resolution and could be accessed commercially (excluding military surveillance spacecraft). Companies such as PlanetLabs are in the process of launching many more.

While each satellite’s imaging device generates an image track only 10-100km across, the motion of the satellite as it orbits the Earth effectively “scans” that track so that the image is narrow in one dimension but circles the world in the other. With orbital periods of around 90 minutes, one satellite makes around 16 passes over the daylit hemisphere every day. The combined imaging work of all these satellites now make a significant contribution to our awareness of maritime traffic.

Image early, image often

Imagery used in search-and-rescue operations is usually taken after the target is lost. In the case of the Niña which disappeared off the coast of New Zealand, eight days elapsed between last radio contact and the alarm being raised. For MH370, the search area evolved over periods of weeks. In both cases, ocean currents carry evidence away from the accident site, while debris disperses and sinks, making it more difficult to identify by satellite.

It would be far better to have an archive of recent, regularly updated images so that the recent history of a location over a period of several days can be examined. This could offer evidence of the vessel’s course or state, or pick up on areas of fresh, concentrated debris.

Making the best of what we have

Satellites with visible wavelength cameras are generally used for gathering images of land. What if satellite operators could generate revenue by taking images of the oceans? The limited resources on satellites mean that it isn’t generally possible to constantly take images, to store that data and transmit it all in the next available contact with the ground (which may be some time after an image is acquired). As it is, it’s not possible to create a global maritime monitoring system of this kind without purpose-built spacecraft with bigger data storage and more frequent contact with ground stations to download it.

But it is possible to monitor high-priority areas of heavy traffic, protected fisheries and security-critical regions, with co-operation between operators of existing spacecraft (for which there are precedents such as George Clooney’s Satellite Sentinel Project , which uses satellites to gather evidence of atrocities and war crimes), and incentives, perhaps involving maritime insurance companies.

Retrieving hundreds of gigabytes of data a day from satellites requires a new approach to ground stations. One solution may be to “crowdsource”: to create a network of stations operated by small institutions, universities and individuals to spread the burden of downloading data and increasing the periods during which data can be recorded and transmitted.

There are groups working on automated vessel-detection algorithms – and crowdsourcing also has a role here, such as TomNod , for example, which asked members of the public to help inspect images online in the search for Niña. How much more effective could search and rescue be if the power of crowdsourcing was applied to each stage of data acquisition, storage and processing, combined with high-quality images taken around the time the vessel was lost?

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Sailor dies after being lost overboard while operating in the Red Sea on Norfolk ship

N ORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — The Department of Defense announced on March 23 that a sailor was lost overboard from the USS Mason, and has died.

The sailor was supporting operations in the Red Sea, as part of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group stationed out of Norfolk.

Aviation Machinist Mate 2nd Class Oriola Michael Aregbesola, 34, died March 20 as a result of a non-combat related incident, officials said. The incident is under investigation.

Aregbesola joined the Navy in 2020, and reported to HSM-74 in December 2020.

“Petty Officer Aregbesola fully embodied the selfless character and thoughtful warrior spirit of the United States Navy Sailor,” said Cmdr. Eric Kohut, HSM-74 commanding officer. “His outstanding performance prior to and during deployment went well beyond aircraft maintenance; he truly saw and valued every member of the ship/air team. He will continue on in the heart of every Swamp Fox and our brothers and sisters in the IKE Carrier Strike Group. Our deepest thoughts and prayers are with his family.”

Aregbesola was assigned to USS Mason deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations, as part of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group.

Check with WAVY.com for more updates.

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It’s a Golden Age for Shipwreck Discoveries. Why?

More lost shipwrecks are being found because of new technology, climate change and more vessels scanning the ocean floor for science or commerce.

By Michael Levenson

Some were fabled vessels that have fascinated people for generations, like Endurance , Ernest Shackleton’s ship that sank in the Antarctic in 1915. Some were common workhorses that faded into the depths, like the Ironton , a barge that was carrying 1,000 tons of grain when it sank in Lake Huron in 1894.

No matter their place in history, more shipwrecks are being found these days than ever before, according to those who work in the rarefied world of deep-sea exploration.

“More are being found, and I also think more people are paying attention,” said James P. Delgado, an underwater archaeologist based in Washington, D.C. He added: “We’re in a transitional phase where the true period of deep-sea and ocean exploration in general is truly beginning.”

So what’s behind the increase?

Experts point to a number of factors. Technology, they say, has made it easier and less expensive to scan the ocean floor, opening up the hunt to amateurs and professionals alike. More people are surveying the ocean for research and commercial ventures. Shipwreck hunters are also looking for wrecks for their historical value, rather than for sunken treasure. And climate change has intensified storms and beach erosion, exposing shipwrecks in shallow water.

Underwater robots and new imaging are helping.

Experts agreed that new technology has revolutionized deep-sea exploration.

Free-swimming robots, known as autonomous underwater vehicles, are much more commonplace than they were 20 years ago, and can scan large tracts of the ocean floor without having to be tethered to a research vessel, according to J. Carl Hartsfield, the director and senior program manager of the Oceanographic Systems Laboratory at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

Remotely operated vehicles can travel 25 miles under the ice sheet in polar regions, he said. And satellite imagery can detect shipwrecks from plumes of sediment moving around them that are visible from space.

“The technology is more capable and more portable and built on scientists’ budgets,” Mr. Hartsfield said, adding: “You can sample larger and larger areas of the ocean per dollar.”

Jeremy Weirich, director of Ocean Exploration at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the expanded use of telepresence systems , which stream images of the ocean floor to anyone with an internet connection, has allowed more people to explore and discover shipwrecks in real time.

And the digitization of archives has made it easier to find and consult historical documents, said David L. Means, a marine scientist and shipwreck explorer.

Even so, it is still easier to organize a mission to find a famous wreck than an obscure one, Mr. Hartsfield said.

“You can get investors to find out what happened to Amelia Earhart , but not to find cargo freighters,” he said. “It’s all about the compelling story.”

Climate change is a factor.

Climate change is playing a role, experts said, by producing more frequent and powerful storms that have eroded shorelines and churned up sunken vessels.

In late January, for example, several months after Hurricane Fiona battered Canada, a 19th-century shipwreck washed ashore in the remote Cape Ray section of Newfoundland, causing a stir in the small community of about 250 people.

In 2020, a couple walking along a beach in St. Augustine, Fla., noticed wooden timbers and bolts sticking out of the sand. Archaeologists said the pieces were most likely remnants of the Caroline Eddy , a ship built during the Civil War that sank in 1880. They were probably exposed, experts said, because of coastal erosion caused by a tropical storm named Eta and by Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Irma in 2017.

Those kinds of coastal discoveries may become more commonplace, Dr. Delgado said. “As the ocean rises,” he said, “it’s digging things out that have been buried or hidden for more than a century.”

Treasure hunting isn’t what it used to be.

Private treasure hunters still search for shipwrecks, hoping to find sunken gold, coins or jewels. But their discoveries often become mired in legal battles, and rarely are their claims ever realized, said Deborah N. Carlson, the president of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, a nonprofit research organization.

She pointed out that the underwater archaeologist Peter Throckmorton once called ocean treasure hunting “ the world’s worst investment ,” and found that it “only benefits promoters and lawyers.”

Private claims to a sunken ship can be contested by nations or insurers. Spain, for example, successfully defended its claim that it maintained ownership of a Spanish frigate that was sunk by the British in 1804 after an American treasure-hunting company found the shipwreck off Portugal in 2007 and took its trove of gold and silver coins to a Florida warehouse.

The UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, adopted in 2001 , sought to protect shipwrecks from looters and said countries should preserve them and other undersea relics “for the benefit of humanity.”

Mr. Hartsfield said that if the goal is “to observe and not disturb” a shipwreck, the cost goes down because it doesn’t require anyone to lower a submersible on a winch to pluck items off the ocean floor. Scientists, he said, can just use a video camera to record the artifacts they find.

“Now, your gold coin is a 4K picture,” Mr. Hartsfield said, referring to a type of high-definition video. “If your sensors are better, you don’t have to necessarily recover an object to investigate it.”

More are joining in and exploring the ocean depths.

While treasure hunters still ply their trade, they have been joined by more commercial and research ventures that have expanded the realm of deep-sea exploration.

Mr. Weirich said that more shipwrecks have been found over the years in large part because of private companies surveying for oil and gas leases, cables and pipelines.

Phil Hartmeyer, a marine archaeologist at NOAA Ocean Exploration, said that more private research groups are also scanning the ocean floor and helping to move scientists around the world closer toward a goal of mapping the entire seabed by 2030 .

NOAA, for example, works with the Schmidt Ocean Institute , a nonprofit research group founded by Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive of Google, and his wife, Wendy Schmidt; the Ocean Exploration Trust , a nonprofit founded by Robert Ballard , who led the expedition that found the Titanic in 1985; and OceanX , an ocean exploration company founded by the billionaire investor Ray Dalio and his son, Mark.

Dr. Carlson said that the field of underwater archaeology has also “expanded significantly,” with more graduate programs producing archaeologists interested in excavating sunken ships for their historical value.

“There are a lot more people in this discipline than there were 50 years ago,” Dr. Carlson said, “and a lot more people are looking for shipwrecks and finding them.”

Michael Levenson joined The Times in December 2019. He was previously a reporter at The Boston Globe, where he covered local, state and national politics and news. More about Michael Levenson

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Survivors of Mediterranean rescue say about 60 people died on the trip from Libya, aid group reports

A migrant is helped evacuate a partially deflated rubber dinghy by the rescue personnel of the SOS Mediterranee humanitarian ship Ocean Viking in the Central Mediterranean Sea, Wednesday, March 13, 2024, Survivors reported that some 50 people who departed Libya with them a week ago had perished during the journey. (Johanna de Tessieres/ SOS Mediterranee via AP, HO)

Migrants are helped evacuate a partially deflated rubber dinghy by the rescue personnel of the SOS Mediterranee humanitarian ship Ocean Viking in the Central Mediterranean Sea, Wednesday, March 13, 2024. Survivors reported that some 50 people who departed Libya with them a week ago had perished during the journey. (Johanna de Tessieres/ SOS Mediterranee via AP, HO)

Migrants are helped evacuate a partially deflated rubber dinghy by the rescue personnel of the SOS Mediteranee’s humanitarian ship Ocean Viking in the Central Mediterranean Sea, Wednesday, March 13, 2024. Survivors reported that some 50 people who departed Libya with them a week ago had perished during the journey. (Johanna de Tessieres/ SOS Mediteranee via AP, HO)

The rescue personnel of the SOS Mediteranee’s humanitarian ship Ocean Viking evacuate migrants from a deflating rubber dinghy in the Central Mediterranean Sea, Wednesday, March 13, 2024. Survivors reported that some 50 people who departed Libya with them a week ago had perished during the journey. (Johanna de Tessieres/ SOS Mediteranee via AP, HO)

The rescue personnel of the SOS Mediteranee’s humanitarian ship Ocean Viking attend migrants rescued from a deflating rubber dinghy in the Central Mediterranean Sea, Wednesday, March 13, 2024. Survivors reported that some 50 people who departed Libya with them a week ago had perished during the journey. (Johanna de Tessieres/ SOS Mediteranee via AP, HO)

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MILAN (AP) — Survivors rescued from a deflating rubber dinghy in the central Mediterranean Sea have reported that some 60 people who departed Libya with them more than a week ago perished during the journey, the humanitarian rescue group SOS Mediterranee said Thursday.

The European charity’s ship Ocean Viking spotted the dinghy with 25 people on board Wednesday. Two were unconscious, and were evacuated to the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, some 60 miles to the north, by an Italian Coast Guard helicopter for treatment. The other 23 were in serious condition, exhausted, dehydrated and with burns from fuel on board the boat.

SOS Mediterranee spokesman Francesco Creazzo said that the survivors were all male, 12 of them minors with two of those not yet teenagers. They were from Senegal, Mali and The Gambia.

Creazzo said the survivors were traumatized and unable to give full accounts of what had transpired during the voyage, adding that the number of missing and presumed dead was unlikely to ever be verified. Humanitarian organizations often rely on accounts of survivors when pulling together the numbers of dead and missing at sea, presumed to have died.

The U.N. International Organization for Migration says 227 people have died along the perilous central Mediterranean route this year through March 11, not counting the new reported missing and presumed dead. That’s out of a total 279 deaths in the Mediterranean since Jan. 1. A total of 19,562 people arrived in Italy using that route in the period.

The survivors said the boat departed Zawiya, Libya with about 85 people on board, including some women and at least one small child. The motor broke sometime after departure, and they had been adrift for more than a week.

“These people saw many of the dear ones die,’' one of the rescuers, identified only as Massimo, said in a video distributed by SOS Mediterranee. ”We have taken care of them. They were suffering from hypothermia, and burns from gasoline and sea water.”

The Ocean Viking later Wednesday night rescued another 113 people adrift in international waters off Libya in a wooden boat, including six women and two children, after being alerted by authorities. Before the Ocean Viking’s arrival, a civilian sailing vessel that was the first to arrive distributed live vests to the people.

Ocean Viking has been directed by Italian authorities to the port of Ancona, in the central Marche region, Creazzo said.

Humanitarian groups have warned that the far-right-led Italian government’s policy of assigning ports further north keeps their rescue ships out of waters where they can be saving lives. The government has typically ordered the ships to port after each rescue, punishing groups that conduct other rescues by blocking ships in port for 20 days at a time. The Ocean Viking has been subject to three such blocks over three months, the most recently from Feb. 8 until a judge lifted the block 10 days later.

Trisha Thomas in Rome and Renata Brito in Barcelona contributed.

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‘A strangely singular freedom’: losing and finding myself at sea

After a break-up, disillusioned with work and lonely in London, the writer Susan Smillie found a companion in her small boat, Isean, and together they set off for an adventure of a lifetime

W hat happened? How did I get here, to this wild place? I found myself completely alone and all at sea. It was kind of an accident, somewhat spontaneous. And entirely unavoidable. I jumped off the edge of Britain. Off to follow the birds south. And here I am. Thousands of miles from home. It was an unexpected departure but it had been coming for a while. I’d been caught up in the city for too long. A decade of living and working in London. I’d loved it, my place there, my job – a features editor for the Guardian – friends nearby. It was a life that really suited me… until it no longer did. It wasn’t London that changed, it was me: like trying to squeeze into the wrong-sized shoes – you love them so much, but they don’t fit.

It wasn’t just the city that didn’t fit. My boyfriend and I broke up. After decades of being one half of a couple, at 40, I was suddenly single. Still, I thought, it would be good for me to stand on my own two feet. So I was surprised to find I was lonely. I tried dating apps and quickly despaired of the tick lists and bios, the swiping and empty message exchanges. At best it was a time-consuming chore. Worse than work. Next came a dysfunctional fling that was exciting for about two minutes then miserable for aeons, eroding my self-esteem in the process. That was the loneliest time of all. I tried to fill evenings and weekends, couldn’t bear to be alone without plans. But I went too far, partied too hard, failed to look after myself and unravelled emotionally. I’d wake up feeling anxious or tearful without explanation, there was a prolonged period of sorrow, overwhelming feelings of emptiness. There were many factors at play but I was old enough to recognise my part in this spiral. What do they say about being lonely? Find a hobby. I turned my eyes to the sea; to where my little boat, Isean, was waiting.

We had found her a few years before, my ex and I: a Nicholson 26. A classic sailing yacht, all elegant lines, teased out by boat builders in the 60s. She’s what you’re likely picturing – one mast, two sails. She, like me, was approaching 40. An abandoned shell, her sails stolen, paint flaking. She, too, was empty inside. No matter. Her beauty shone through. She cost a few thousand pounds, and it took thousands more to fit her out. But you don’t grudge spending on family, do you? And now she is kin. After all the work, she was ready to sail. One problem. I wasn’t. It’s not that I couldn’t sail. I was an amateur with a basic qualification, comfortable being crew. But good God, I wasn’t ready to be in charge.

There was a seemingly endless and varied list of things I didn’t know, all crucial for safety. The sails and rigging, lines and knots. Batteries, electrics, gas, solar, plumbing. Tides! The Beaufort scale! I was often apologising to Isean as she got us out of trouble. When a strong gust powered up the sails I was caught between elation and terror. “Oh God, the boat is really tipping!” I imagined her reply. Yes I am meant to heel! How white horses at sea unnerved me. I’d need to get better at gauging how much wind I could handle. Not much, she would observe. How much could Isean handle? Whatever you throw at me. OK, then I’ll catch up.

This seaworthy boat wanted real sailing and so did I. “If you can sail in the Solent,” people said, “you can sail anywhere.” By the summer of 2014, with help, we were there. One of the busiest sailing grounds in the world; good for learning. I grew reasonably competent – avoided crashing into ships or grounding on sandbanks. What gave me confidence was Isean. People would wander over smiling as they took in her lines. “A Nicholson!” they’d exclaim. “She’ll look after you.” I saw it too, in how she cut effortlessly through heavy waves. How this little boat loved big seas. She was so forgiving of all my mistakes. I learned how to handle the helm and trim the sails. The better I got, the better she responded, doing what I expected, going where I hoped. And the better she liked me, the more I liked myself.

Together, we sailed the summer away, meandering and dreaming, heading ever further into the beautiful west. Dorset’s Jurassic skies; the rugged Cornish coast, big blue Atlantic seas crashing white beaches. Off the coast of Devon, friends joined for a sunset sail, and so did a superpod of dolphins. Perhaps thousands, clicking and whistling, breaching and bow riding, beneath the boat, in the air, near and far. I watched, heart swelling, tears falling, as they raced to deep waters in the sinking sun. I was still making my living in the city but the real living – the kind that makes you want to jump out of bed and breathe it all in – was time off with Isean. When I returned to London, the happy part of me was still with her. Just at this point, my employers made a company-wide offer of voluntary redundancy. The realisation hit me at once. This city, this career, this life, no longer held me. I wanted to be with Isean. To be at sea. It was an easy decision to leave my job. Scary, but easy. By late August 2017, Isean and I were perched in Penzance. We’d made it to the very edge of the country. I was planning to round Land’s End, coast hop the UK. But Isean had other ideas. She pointed her bow towards France. Over a couple of stormy weeks, the idea of a bigger journey – a different destiny – formed, quietly at first, then became so irresistible I had no choice but to act. One night at summer’s close, and quite to my own surprise, we sailed away from British shores. We followed the kindly sea, a path lit silver by a waxing crescent moon. Flew south like the migrating swifts. She got her way, and it became my way.

It was easier than I imagined, leaving everything and everyone I knew. It was also a massive leap. Until my 40s I had barely travelled alone. I’d been scared of being lonely, of being unable to communicate or navigate a foreign country. Now I was about to navigate – really navigate – my own way to France, maybe Spain, perhaps even Portugal. I had so recently been frightened to take charge of this little boat. But how adaptable we humans are. It’s about taking the first step, then you find your way. Once I started, my ability – and my trust in it – grew. I found a resourcefulness and resilience I didn’t know I had. If I stopped telling myself I couldn’t do something, I realised, then I could. The decision to go to sea, to choose this life alone, was a measure of how much I’d learned, how much happier I was with my own company. It was a massive vote of confidence in myself.

Just over a day after setting off from Land’s End, there I was, sitting under the sun in the port of Aber Wrac’h, revelling in the matchless pleasure of having travelled to another country under my own steam. I hadn’t gone to an airport, booked a train or exchanged money. I’d simply untied Isean’s lines and set off into the sunset. What a strangely singular freedom. After that, I felt unstoppable. We flew through Brittany’s rites of passage, down the fast-flowing Chenal du Four to Brest, past the rock-encumbered tidal gate that is the Raz de Sein. We crossed the vast Bay of Biscay and made careful progress down Spain’s Costa del Morte – the coast of death – into Portugal. An unexpected winter in the Algarve. In spring, hardly believing it myself, we entered the Mediterranean, sailed along the coast of Africa. Africa!

Friends joined along the way. Some were easier to accommodate than others. One challenge was in collecting them. Most people need certainty before they book a flight and it was hard to predict where I’d be, drifting from country to country. Suzie and Karin visited in Spain, Suzie folding herself origami-style into the damp aft quarter berth (with a lubricating whisky). Karin, meanwhile, turned up with a hairdryer! I had just enough solar power to charge my phone (for communication, navigation and weather), anchor light (for safety) and the luxury of a small speaker (music and podcasts). “What’s all this?” I demanded as she emptied her bag of stuff. “Life!” she replied. Life like I used to know, perhaps, but on an 8m boat there was barely room for the three of us. I had roughly the space of a classic VW campervan. It was camping, really. I didn’t have much comfort. No shower, no fridge. A two-burner stove, sink and toilet. A laptop for watching stuff online, but, instead, I’d fall asleep, book discarded. My attention was held by dreamy panoramas shifting and drifting past my window – ivory beaches, cliffs and castles. A whale spouting in the distance. Insanely clear aquamarine around me.

But even in the most idyllic settings, there were bouts of boredom, periods of loneliness. It sometimes happened if I stopped. I might stare at families splashing in holiday mode and question my purpose. We don’t really want to be on holiday all the time – we’re happier being productive. A day cleaning my engine (with a toothbrush!) or freelance writing restored the balance. I also found balance between company and time alone in quiet bays with the shy creatures that avoid humans in noisy numbers. Mostly, it was just Isean and me, the two of us weathering the extreme conditions that come with life in the wilderness. I liked it that way. Just myself to keep safe from numerous storms and occasional hurricanes.

I’m not usually one of life’s planners. At sea, I changed fast. You’re at the mercy of weather conditions and must be organised. I’d always be thinking ahead, checking forecasts, harbour approaches, predicting tides, observing the waxing and waning of the moon. Extreme storms are an ever-present danger nowadays and they do focus the mind. In 2019, about halfway down Portugal’s coast, we sought shelter from the first category-three hurricane to barrel this side of the Atlantic. Ophelia’s strength reduced over the Azores, but it was wild enough, a sleepless night swerving around in high winds. Soon after, in the Algarve, we clung anxiously to a pier as two tornadoes spun perilously close (thankfully they didn’t veer in our direction). In 2020, in Greece, we rushed from the Ionian islands ahead of cyclone Ianos’s arrival, found safety in Preveza, just outside its orbit. Scores of sunken sailing boats around those islands were less fortunate.

Stressful things, storms. It’s horrible awaiting their arrival: the electricity in the air, the tension, the worry. But humans are adapted for these threats – the fight-or-flight response kicks in. You know what to do in a storm. Seek shelter, batten the hatches, set the anchor… and hope! The stress is alleviated by action. Less harmful, surely, than the pervading anxiety brought by the pressures of modern life – workplace worries that linger in the night. Adrenaline rushing in a meeting where someone belittles you isn’t helpful, is it? But if you must haul 50m of chain to avoid dragging offshore in a gale, it’s quite useful. As scary as they were, I was really living during these storms. Then the weather passes: the calm after the storm. I loved days drifting in a meditative state, practising my own form of mindfulness, staring at the ocean. I made mistakes – so many. It’s great knowing theory but nothing reinforces a lesson like your own error creating a terrifying experience.

Take one sudden squall near Malaga. I sailed on instead of seeking shelter. It overpowered us. In no time Isean was swerving wildly out of control and I was merely clinging on – and screaming. I still shudder at the memory of closely cutting behind a chain ferry, steel cables inches from tearing open our hull. It’s easy to get complacent when you spend every waking and sleeping moment at sea, and that’s when things get dangerous. Sometimes I wonder that I made it all the way to Greece – to Odysseus’s sailing ground, no less – without disaster. But no. Of course I made it. Isean got me here, kept me safe. My trusty little boat. My sanctuary in every storm, my companion in adventure.

I still see our journey, like a film in my mind’s eye, Isean always in the frame. Fairytale pretty, here she is, anchored by snowcapped mountains and castles in Spain. Cruising with big wave surfers in Portugal. Sailing over a lost city in Italy, Roman ruins under the waves. Stromboli! Saffron flames licking an inky sky. Isean and I, infinitesimally small at the foot of the mighty volcano. A silent agreement, made together, to avoid sailing into lava. And here we are. In the land of the gods, on electric-blue seas. Beautiful Greece. I’ve never felt so lucky. I have to keep reminding myself that this is my life now. There will be no phone call to drag me back to an office, no emails or work meetings to take me away from this, the happiest “place” I’ve ever found. I’m no longer thousands of miles from home. My idea of home has changed. Home is not a place, it is a feeling. Wherever Isean is; that is home. My home is with her.

The Half Bird (Penguin Michael Joseph, £16.99) by Susan Smillie is out on 21 March. Preorder it for £14.95 at guardianbookshop.com

An extract from The Half Bird

Ahead, dark cumulonimbus clouds were piling up over the Montes de Málaga, Andalucía’s stunning mountain range. I stared in awe, appreciating the unreal light as tall black clouds bowled dramatically towards us. The first thing I thought to do was take a picture. The second thought, following closely behind – reef! I should reduce my sails. Too late. The storm hit us, a squall as sudden as it was furious.

The noise! Gusts screeched like the getaway car on a bank heist. Thunder rumbled and lightning cracked. The sea was black, reflecting an incandescent sky, and torrential rain swept sideways across the surface of the water. I could no longer see the coast; the whole scene looked and sounded disconcertingly like mid-ocean. You don’t have a lot of time to think in this situation, but you have plenty of time to feel. One feeling dominated. Terror.

Wind powered up the sails and we sped off. The dinghy, trailing behind, flipped and its floor flew into the distance. I was in complete panic and Isean seemed equally frightened, like a wild thing, out of control and swerving crazily. We were tipped on our side, the left gunwale underwater, waves washing over the side. In no time, without a life jacket or safety harness, I was merely clinging on.

When things go badly wrong on a boat, you want to hide but you have to act. No one else can help you. You overcome fear because the alternative is worse, and you find a physical strength fuelled by adrenaline and desperation. Isean powered up to the wind as I fought to steer off and furl in her foresail, inch by inch, desperate to take the power out. But the line jammed. I was aghast. Now I had to get to the bow. Our world was upside down, the starboard deck high in the air. I crawled along it, whipped painfully by a merciless wind that lashed me with stinging wet ropes. It was chaos, sails flapping, ropes flying. Inside, I would discover, was worse: a formless pile of food and oil, equipment and clothes, solids and liquids intermingled, all atoms fighting for space. Eventually, arms aching, hands throbbing in pain, I wrestled both sails away, felt the boat even out and we turned downwind. The gusts screeched from behind, still heart-poundingly strong, but I was back in control. I got the engine on and motored out to sea for space. There was plenty. We were totally alone. No one else was stupid enough to be out there. Heading away from the comfort of land in a storm is without a doubt the loneliest feeling in the world. All you want is a safe harbour, other boats, other people, but what you need is sea space. As quickly as it had come, the squall passed. I apologised to Isean and started to cry.

I felt extremely stupid and utterly alone. I had no right to be out here, putting myself and my boat in such danger. It was completely irresponsible. I’d been lucky. Isean’s substantial weight and stability had kept us safe. But, even in those moments of shock and remorse, I knew I would recover myself. My mistake had been so obvious, the consequences so terrifying, I wouldn’t repeat it. It was another learning experience. I’d be off again first thing in the morning, but now it was time to stop. I sniffed pathetically all the way back to Fuengirola.

An hour later, feeling very sorry for myself, we limped into the little port and dropped anchor in a flat-calm sea. People strolled the promenade with ice-creams and sunbathed on loungers. The sun shone as if nothing had happened, mocking me. Still trembling an hour later, I went to bed with a cup of tea and a massive bar of chocolate. My second day in the Med and a perfect introduction to conditions there.

Extracted from The Half Bird by Susan Smillie

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U.S. Navy confirms Norfolk-based Sailor 'lost overboard' in Red Sea

The U.S. Navy on Saturday identified a Sailor who died after being "lost overboard" from the guided-missile destroyer USS Mason (DDG 87) which has been operating in the Red Sea.

The Department of Defense and the U.S. Navy confirmed Aviation Machinist Mate 2nd Class Oriola Michael Aregbesola, 34, of Miramar, Florida, died Wednesday in a 'non-combat related incident.'

Neither the DoD nor the Navy provided any further details about the incident.

"Aregbesola, assigned to the “Swamp Foxes” of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 74, was deployed with a detachment aboard Mason, which has been operating in the U.S. 5th Fleet since November," the U.S. Navy said.

Mason and HSM-74 are part of the Norfolk-based Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group and are currently deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations.

Officials said Aregbesola joined the Navy in July 2020, reporting to HSM-74 in December 2020.

“Petty Officer Aregbesola fully embodied the selfless character and thoughtful warrior spirit of the United States Navy Sailor,” said Cmdr. Eric Kohut, HSM-74 commanding officer. “His outstanding performance prior to and during deployment went well beyond aircraft maintenance; he truly saw and valued every member of the ship/air team. He will continue on in the heart of every Swamp Fox and our brothers and sisters in the IKE Carrier Strike Group. Our deepest thoughts and prayers are with his family.”

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Man lost at sea and rescued with his dog vows to sail again: 'I'll always be on the water'

The Australian sailor who spent months drifting aimlessly in the Pacific Ocean thanked rescuers on Tuesday and vowed he'll be back on the water, despite his terrifying adventure.

While 51-year-old Tim Shaddock doesn’t have any high-seas adventures planned now, the fortunate sailor insisted that he'll never give up the pastime.

"Look, I’ll always be in the water," he told reporters in Manzanillo, Mexico. “I just love nature.”

Sporting a shaggy beard, Shaddock appeared on land for the first time in three months and expressed his gratitude to the fishermen who found him and his dog.

“Look, to the captain and this fishing [crew] — [they] saved my life — what do you say?" Shaddock said. "I’m just so grateful. I'm alive."

He added: “I’m feeling all right. I’m feeling a lot better than I was, I can tell you. Thanks so much.”

Shaddock and his dog, Bella, shoved off from La Paz, Mexico, three months ago before their journey took a near-deadly turn one month into it.

That’s when a storm struck his white catamaran, wiping out all electronics, the sailor said. That incident two months ago was nearly deadly.

"I didn’t think I'd make it through the storm," Shaddock said. "Now I’m really doing good."

Shaddock had charted a journey to French Polynesia before the storm sent them off course.

The man and dog reportedly survived on raw fish and rain water. The lost sailor said he avoided sunburn by taking cover under his boat’s canopy.

“Look, I feel really good. I was struggling, the health was pretty bad for a while," he said. "I was pretty hungry, and I didn’t think I’d make it through the storm. But now I’m doing really good. Thank you.”

They floated aimlessly in the Pacific for two months, seemingly with no hope for survival, before a crew of fishermen from Mexico came upon them, Shaddock and the fishing company said.

A helicopter, scouting on behalf of the tuna trawler, first spotted Shaddock, leading to their needle-in-a-haystack discovery and rescue, they said.

"You don't have to hear it from me. The message is we're all here for each other. All sailors help each other," Shaddock said. "Even if you don't sail, I'm here for you, too. We're all out here for each other."

Shaddock and Bella were fished out of the water by the trawler and taken back to Mexico.

Shaddock couldn't imagine enduring all he did without the support of his faithful dog.

"She’s amazing, mate," he said. "I mean, that dog is something else. I’m a bit biased. But yeah.”

Shaddock was greeted on land by Antonio Suárez, president of Grupomar, the company that operates the trawler that found wayward sailor.

Suárez said it's difficult to explain how lucky it was for his crew to have stumbled upon Shaddock.

"I’m going to say — a straw in a pack of hay to find somebody in the middle of the sea," told NBC News shortly before Shaddock's arrival. "So it’s a huge place out there. People don’t realize the immenseness of the sea in itself and obviously, I think it was luck."

Shaddock was about 1,000 miles off the Mexican coast when the fishing expedition found him, according to Suárez. When crew members radioed to shore about their miraculously discovery, the fisherman were told to be careful.

"We asked them to proceed with caution to see what it was. They found a man and his dog inside," the company owner said. "First of all, they brought him on board gave him first aid. They were pretty burned because of the sun. Pretty dehydrated."

He added: "We were in communication with our crew at all times. We made sure that the crew touched base with the authorities and also with the company doctors to make sure that they were doing things right."

When Shaddock met with reporters on Tuesday, he wore a red baseball cap emblazoned with "Tuny," the food brand of Suárez's Grupomar.

David K. Li is a senior breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.