Replies

Boat was found off Volusia County, not Jacksonville as had been reported.

We don’t know what their parents gave them permission to do. It sounds to me like they were expecting them back Friday at dusk.

If you spent a lot time here, you know that there is nothing unusual about kids this age in boats on the water. Sounds like they should have been better prepared/equipped for whatever trip they planned, but dumping on the parents at this point (without all the facts) doesn’t seem to help either.

I lived in Miami and I spent my twenties and half my thirties in a fishing boat out in the keys every weekend. Nobody in their right mind would have ever let two 14 year old kids take off for the Bahamas in a 19 ft boat. The teens would spin around the back country in little skiffs but never out in the Ocean. Not without an adult.

Maybe times have changed but not for the wiser. If the parents knew about it and said it was OK then they were really foolhardy. Now they will never see their kids again. Sad.

I live about 40 miles south of Jupiter, have two boats, and actually was out in the ocean today. On Friday we had a couple of squalls come though with winds to 45 miles per hour. The teens were in a 19 foot Seacraft according to the Coast Guard pan pan broadcasts today. In the 80s that boat brand had a reputation for sinking and were sometimes called “sinkcraft” for their propensity to go under. The problem wih them is that the transom was cut very low to the water. The manufacturer tried to fix it by putting lead weight foward and limiting weight on the stern. Of course Seacraft has gone through many owners since then, but based on the pictures I saw of their boat they look like it was one of the older ones with a newer engine (heavier now thanks to the EPA). As far as the kids on the water they are everywhere here. Heck I got my first boat as an 8th grader in Long Island. They tell you to stay with the boat if they go down, but the foam in them makes them turtle and there isn't much to hold onto especially in any sort of seas. The other factor down here is the current in the gulfsstream, I headed 8 mph south today trolling, and still ended up north of where I went out.