Posted on 07/31/2015 9:11:31 AM PDT by CGASMIA68
With this big moon tonight I would like to see them give it one more night. I hung out of one of those search plane doors for years and that bright moon makes a dif.
Feel bad for the young guys with so many gang bangers and dead end POS kids running around these days the to were having good clean fun but made a bad choice that day by heading to the outside.
Sad ending......
Did the boys get caught in a storm trying to make the run to Bahamas?
Indeed. I was really hoping for a better ending- I know we all were.
I wonder how they do some of this stuff- flying around in airplanes looking for a head bobbing in the ocean seems like it’s be really easy to miss. Do they use thermal imaging or something? Do they go back over places they’ve overflown just to make sure? I have no doubt that they do it whatever the very best way is and I have a lot of respect for them. Just wondering how it all works.
I don’t think they were headed to Bimini or the West End. I think they just decided to go to the outside on a day when some pretty nasty thunderstorms were rolling west and got caught up in one...Think they were flipped over.
Parents said they never had permission to go out and to stay inside.Looks like they pushed their luck.
Back a few years when I did it we relied on our eyes and binocs only.We were trained in tequniques for scanning the surface and CG District 7 knows the seas winds and currents and sets up the search patterns.
Electronic buoys were dropped to measure currents and aid the process.
I am sure with technology things have gotten better but its still the old needle in a haystack scenario.
I can tell you after a day or so and you do find something or some one it is a thrill.
They were in effect standing on the overturned boat with only their heads above water no life jackets. We got them all on board and were even able to get a rope on their skiff.
Their anchored shrimp boat was not even in sight but we found it and they jumped off our boat and swam to it. It was their lucky day!
I did read a little bit about determining likely position using software and working from that, but beyond that I have no idea. I spend a little time on the water, I have a strobe and a marine transceiver clipped to my PFD and want to get a couple of smoke floats. Maybe something for hydration, as well.
I feel so sorry for their parents. Apparently the kids were not supposed to go offshore but did anyway. This is a good example of why having an EPIRB aboard any vessel is always a good idea. God rest their sous.
Really sad, but when I saw that their boat was found 70 miles offshore and they weren’t around it I figured the worst had happened. Youthful arrogance and stupidity mostly doesn’t hold too many serious consequences, but unfortunately add that to a big ocean, a little boat and some bad storms and you have this tragedy. The ocean isn’t a place to take chances.
Thanks CGASMIA68 - sad for the families. I hope their story promotes boating safety for many others - plan, prepare, check, etc.
After looking out that door for years and seeing some of the strange things that can happen out there I have always owned my own flotation set up with a strobe and a transceiver.
When ever I would go out with some one else I would always take my own stuff.
Some guys thought I was nuts but most guys keep jackets and vest stowed under seat etc and don’t start breaking it out till weather builds....I like to have mine on the ready
Wow. You probably saved their lives, esp if no one knew they were missing. Were they Vietnamese?
Sounds like you have the creds to fend off any derisive commentary. The thought of treading water alone, out of sight of land with darkness falling is kind of...horrifying.
I am not a parent and if I was wouldn’t be one of these “helicopter parents” but I do know when your a kid and your on the intercostal at the inlet any inlet looking out you always want to “go out”. Its the Huck Fin in all boys...
My advise to any parent with an adventurous kid in a boat would be put a tracker on that kids boat and if he disobeys your rules,pull the boat.
These folks are eaten up with anguish and I feel for them very much.They trusted the boys to obey the rules and the boys pushed the envelope.
PS: Jupiter is a brutal inlet in good weather although I don’t think this happened in or out of the inlet but off shore a ways
Heres an incident in 2010.I had meet this Cptn years before,he was experinced and coming in from a good day.He died from his injuries... this was sad.
The ocean has no mercy
I was a kid once, too, and I would have been itching to see how far I could go in that little 19 foot boat.
I do know how these parents feel. I lost a son who was just doing something dumb — probably a lot like these kids. This will never end for them.
sorry for your loss too
Capt had been running that channel 20 years and this still happened....
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