Florida fishing teenagers missing.
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I think there are many angles to explore. Foul play is one. Joining up with some others and leaving the boat behind. Running away somewhere. Some adventure that got way out of hand. However, with most of those, you'd think something more would be turning up. But they did appear to be somewhere they don't normally go and aren't supposed to go at least not to the knowledge of their mother. Whatever the answer, it's no less sad or tragic, if in fact lives have been lost.
The fact it was called in and reported so quickly and investigated so quickly surprised me a bit. You just call and say my son is out on the water, it's now 5 pm and they're out fishing and were supposed to call me at 2:30 and the normal reaction is I'm sure they'll call you soon. Maybe they're just in a bad phone area. That's an exceptionally quick missing persons action. Someone mentioned them going to the Bahamas which the parents quickly said they wouldn't be allowed to do. Well, where did that mention come from?
As to the facts, we don't have them. But I'm sure law enforcement is exploring all scenarios.
The fact it was called in and reported so quickly and investigated so quickly surprised me a bit. You just call and say my son is out on the water, it's now 5 pm and they're out fishing and were supposed to call me at 2:30 and the normal reaction is I'm sure they'll call you soon. Maybe they're just in a bad phone area. That's an exceptionally quick missing persons action. Someone mentioned them going to the Bahamas which the parents quickly said they wouldn't be allowed to do. Well, where did that mention come from?
As to the facts, we don't have them. But I'm sure law enforcement is exploring all scenarios.
psneeld
Guru
One article mentioned they said something about the Bahamas.
The USCG more widely adopted the hit it hard early philosophy after the sailboat Morning Dew incident in Charleston.
Obviously when dealing with the Gulf Stream and other strong environmental factors...every hour wasted expands the search area.
The USCG more widely adopted the hit it hard early philosophy after the sailboat Morning Dew incident in Charleston.
Obviously when dealing with the Gulf Stream and other strong environmental factors...every hour wasted expands the search area.
markpierce
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Doesn't a human brain not mature until the late twenties? That's my experience. Have done stupid stuff, but not fatal, fortunately.
Exactly.
Obviously there's no "definite" info, or this would be a homicide investigation, and would become a law enforcement matter.
Sent you a pm
OD
Ain't that a fact my friend.
Haven't we all...
While not my usual response, I will say that in cases like this, involving young lives, stupid should not be fatal
The Bahamas angle was from a post on Facebook.
This sound like a simple boating accident. I took the missing engine cover as something that happened when the boat capsized but it could be they had engine problems that then led to the capsize. Not sure it really makes much difference. The boat was supposed to have multiple PFDs so there is hope the kids put one on since only one was found. There has been a mention of a cooler that was not with the boat.
Later,
Dan
This sound like a simple boating accident. I took the missing engine cover as something that happened when the boat capsized but it could be they had engine problems that then led to the capsize. Not sure it really makes much difference. The boat was supposed to have multiple PFDs so there is hope the kids put one on since only one was found. There has been a mention of a cooler that was not with the boat.
Later,
Dan
HopCar
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I think I'll get myself a PLB and actually carry it when I go offshore.
Oliver, you spend a lot of time offshore in small boats, get one for yourself too.
Oliver, you spend a lot of time offshore in small boats, get one for yourself too.
HopCar
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I knew you were smarter than me.
High Wire
Guru
Still have hope.
I cannot help but wonder what would capsize a normally robust 18 ft SeaCraft center console?
Wind? Doubt if even a microburst woud flip one sideways. Backwards off a big wave maybe.
Breaking surf? No one saying it was that bad ot there.
Stuff the bow? Possible, they were always restricted to inland coastal waters per the parents. Maybe too fast for a big wave.
No signs of collision seen.
Their CC has a low CG, self-bailing deck, with a cutout transom. If moving forward, any water coming on board should just run out the back. Unless maybe a thru-hull broke and flooded below deck. Like one of those plastic livewell pumps. Thats my guess.
I cannot help but wonder what would capsize a normally robust 18 ft SeaCraft center console?
Wind? Doubt if even a microburst woud flip one sideways. Backwards off a big wave maybe.
Breaking surf? No one saying it was that bad ot there.
Stuff the bow? Possible, they were always restricted to inland coastal waters per the parents. Maybe too fast for a big wave.
No signs of collision seen.
Their CC has a low CG, self-bailing deck, with a cutout transom. If moving forward, any water coming on board should just run out the back. Unless maybe a thru-hull broke and flooded below deck. Like one of those plastic livewell pumps. Thats my guess.
psneeld
Guru
Was it an older Seacraft? The older ones will sink and flip in the wink of an eye if the engine size was pushed and the boat sat still for a bit. The suppers will allow water to come up into the cockpit and it leaks into the bilge easily through the engine well pie plate. Every of one I have dealt with (a dozen or so) sank at the dock in that fashion after being repowered. A broken through hull is a possibility....an inop auto bilge pump would do that boat in from many possible water ingress possibilities.
Survival is more about will than skills. At 14 years old, and scared, skills may have never been used....or the boys are fearless and using every trick in the book to survive.
Both wills and skills eventually run out, depending on the person. Sometimes options just aren't available for the skills so the will is more important.
Survival is more about will than skills. At 14 years old, and scared, skills may have never been used....or the boys are fearless and using every trick in the book to survive.
Both wills and skills eventually run out, depending on the person. Sometimes options just aren't available for the skills so the will is more important.
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Back in my 20s, a friend and I were out in a 21 Mako jigging for grouper on one of the many wrecks off Ft. Lauderdale. We were mostly fighting big amberjack that day - which is more fun than catching nothing. Anyway, a summer squall overtook us while hooked into a tough fish with the rod bent almost double - and the stern into the seas. In a matter of seconds the wind and seas came up and the first big wave broke right over the stern and practically pooped us. We quickly cut the line, fired up the Yamaha and steered into the seas. The water drained out through the scuppers and engine well. We were lucky, but it serves to illustrate how quickly you can get into big trouble while "just fishing". Sure hope those boys are found...
Everything you noted could have gone wrong.
The one exception is, from my sources in LE, there were reports from commercial fishermen/charters, that it was pretty rough out there. One in about a 40'er said he was getting beat up pretty badly coming in.
Here's a pretty decent article (for the mainstream press anyway) on the kids and the situation:
Search for missing teens: Floating object found near boat
Survival, on land or sea, is definitely a combination of skill, will, preparation, and some good luck.
My dad, a very large adult neighbor, and myself, were all out in the bay, on a windy but not really "bad" day, bad when I was a kid.
We had a 14' glassed over plywood tiller drive motorboat, and were out for a day of fishing. Tooling along at speed, our neighbor suddenly moved from near the stern, directly to the bow cover.....all I saw was a wall of water!!
Dad's quick response on the throttle and immediate demand for the neighbor to quickly relocate to the stern (dad would have made a good CG Chief
), we came back to the surface and began bailing water!Even the best day's can go bad quickly with a little bad luck.
Still praying for these kids recovery alive.
OD
psneeld
Guru
Still no useful info for cause or search pkanning.
Even the speed of the Gulf Stream seems a bit high for the search area as the 5.6 is the accepted max....unless it included the surface current for drift rate based on the southerly winds that were present. Which is entirely possible based on the average news report.
Even the speed of the Gulf Stream seems a bit high for the search area as the 5.6 is the accepted max....unless it included the surface current for drift rate based on the southerly winds that were present. Which is entirely possible based on the average news report.
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psneeld
Guru
One weird one was a widow who hired a pilot to look...but first a mystic to interview me (search coordinator) and look at the USCG files to get a good feel where to start looking.
I suggested the money would be better spent on a side scan sonar about 10 miles from where the mystic suggested (mystic played mind games using suggestive but already known info)...sure enough, several weeks later a local savor with side scan founded the downed aircraft a few miles from where I suggested they start.
Search and Rescue is not difficult when you have some concrete info....
So far as reported in this case...hardly anything useful...but then again...I am not seeing the participant interviews either...just the news media info.
I surfed across a news report yesterday of a father, his two sons, and a friend of the fathers who were rescued off SC after a night spent in the water. They went out the day before and one of their outboard motors quit so they head back to shore. On the way back, the other engine quit and sometime later they boat capsized.
They spent the day and night holding onto a cooler and kicking the sharks away.
They were found in the morning.
Reading the various histories of ship wrecks, mostly of WWII sinkings in the Pacific, it always stood out that some people survived and other did not, while in the exact same circumstances. The difference in survival was will power and attitude. Nothing more. Some people would simply go insane. Others would loose their minds and try to swim to something that was not there or deliberately swim away from the group to feed the sharks. A large percentage of survivors from the initial sinking were killed by sharks. Given one was floating in the water, dying of thirst, burned by the sun, seeing and hearing shipmates eaten by sharks, sometimes right next to you, loosing one's mind is understandable.
The survivors did not panic, and while will power is important to keep one from drinking sea water and to keep going, I suspect many survivors simply did not give up. They had hope and kept bad thoughts under control which is a type of will power. Those that did not, died before the group was rescued.
What those men went through was horrendous.
Later,
Dan
They spent the day and night holding onto a cooler and kicking the sharks away.
They were found in the morning.
Reading the various histories of ship wrecks, mostly of WWII sinkings in the Pacific, it always stood out that some people survived and other did not, while in the exact same circumstances. The difference in survival was will power and attitude. Nothing more. Some people would simply go insane. Others would loose their minds and try to swim to something that was not there or deliberately swim away from the group to feed the sharks. A large percentage of survivors from the initial sinking were killed by sharks. Given one was floating in the water, dying of thirst, burned by the sun, seeing and hearing shipmates eaten by sharks, sometimes right next to you, loosing one's mind is understandable.
The survivors did not panic, and while will power is important to keep one from drinking sea water and to keep going, I suspect many survivors simply did not give up. They had hope and kept bad thoughts under control which is a type of will power. Those that did not, died before the group was rescued.
What those men went through was horrendous.
Later,
Dan
I am sure it's quite common and I'd likely be the same way, but everything heard from the parents so far has been total denial. It's been first they don't go outside by themselves, then they go four miles out to the deep water. It's been they're skilled, been training for this all their life. Then, they're very athletic, we know they're floating and surviving. Then when the CG was asking no one to get in their way, they were asking for people to go search. When the Bahamas was brought up, they said their sons would never have done that, weren't allowed. I can only imagine their reaction when the search is called off. They make the point of them learning to swim before walking when trying to swim somewhere is the biggest mistake they could have made.
Things like this do happen to people with experience. They go off shore in boats ill equipped for it. I'd never go outside in the boat they were in. They make mistakes in the search for fish. The boat wasn't equipped for this, probably because no one imagined it going out there. As to being experienced at 14 and having done it all their lives, well, at 14 I had as well. But all my life at 14 was perhaps the equivalent of 4 years and now I have 9 times that experience.
Psneeld comments on engine size and how often do we see small boats powered beyond the plate.
Actually one thing contradicts all the confidence expressed by the parents. Before 5:30 they were panicked and eliciting coast guard help. My parents never would have started worrying about my cousin and I that early. With all the confidence they're publicly expressing, something told them there was cause for concern.
It's a tragedy regardless of any of the issues or causes. These things happen to older more experienced boaters. I don't blame the parents or the kids. I don't know what happened other than they were somewhere their parents say they weren't supposed to be, and they went out in conditions others say were making them come in. Also, for whatever reason, they weren't with the boat. Inability or choice not to stay with the boat may ultimately be the biggest factor in their deaths if they don't survive.
A Psneeld says, we don't have access to the interviews conducted or any of the information the CG does. They also walk a careful line in just trying to do their job and making very little comment while the families have been in front of cameras and talking to news sources constantly.
You mentioned the side scan sonar and I was wondering earlier what level of sonar the CG search vessels have?
Things like this do happen to people with experience. They go off shore in boats ill equipped for it. I'd never go outside in the boat they were in. They make mistakes in the search for fish. The boat wasn't equipped for this, probably because no one imagined it going out there. As to being experienced at 14 and having done it all their lives, well, at 14 I had as well. But all my life at 14 was perhaps the equivalent of 4 years and now I have 9 times that experience.
Psneeld comments on engine size and how often do we see small boats powered beyond the plate.
Actually one thing contradicts all the confidence expressed by the parents. Before 5:30 they were panicked and eliciting coast guard help. My parents never would have started worrying about my cousin and I that early. With all the confidence they're publicly expressing, something told them there was cause for concern.
It's a tragedy regardless of any of the issues or causes. These things happen to older more experienced boaters. I don't blame the parents or the kids. I don't know what happened other than they were somewhere their parents say they weren't supposed to be, and they went out in conditions others say were making them come in. Also, for whatever reason, they weren't with the boat. Inability or choice not to stay with the boat may ultimately be the biggest factor in their deaths if they don't survive.
A Psneeld says, we don't have access to the interviews conducted or any of the information the CG does. They also walk a careful line in just trying to do their job and making very little comment while the families have been in front of cameras and talking to news sources constantly.
You mentioned the side scan sonar and I was wondering earlier what level of sonar the CG search vessels have?
psneeld
Guru
I don't believe any have side scan sonar...but in this case..no use as the boat was found and the water too deep and vast to find anything. So eyeballs during the day, and night vision/FLIR at night. Big cutters would have sonar which might be of some use, don't know just how good it might be....
It is amazing what can be missed. I remember a case where we flew over an 80 foot fishing vessel and never saw it. One crewman noted something off to the side near the horizon. A tired crew broke discipline and everyone looked. Flew right over the fishing vessel, no one say it and just by chance, a crew an saw it at our six in the distance. Scary but true.
It's not that the boats are capacity plate overpowered...it's the weight on the transom of older boats designed for 2 strokes that are the worst.
This looked like one of the newer Sea Crafts from the one picture I saw..if that was even the boat. But as posted, taking water over the stern and not being all that experiencdd/aware can be just as bad.
Good spokes persons just stick to the facts, the news often gets the facts scrambled, but in this case there are so few facts being printed, right or wrong.
Without facts, only poor guess can be made. The only fact I am seeing is the worst enemy of all.....time elapsed...
It is amazing what can be missed. I remember a case where we flew over an 80 foot fishing vessel and never saw it. One crewman noted something off to the side near the horizon. A tired crew broke discipline and everyone looked. Flew right over the fishing vessel, no one say it and just by chance, a crew an saw it at our six in the distance. Scary but true.
It's not that the boats are capacity plate overpowered...it's the weight on the transom of older boats designed for 2 strokes that are the worst.
This looked like one of the newer Sea Crafts from the one picture I saw..if that was even the boat. But as posted, taking water over the stern and not being all that experiencdd/aware can be just as bad.
Good spokes persons just stick to the facts, the news often gets the facts scrambled, but in this case there are so few facts being printed, right or wrong.
Without facts, only poor guess can be made. The only fact I am seeing is the worst enemy of all.....time elapsed...
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How many survivors tell about seeing boats, ships, aircraft passing them but they were not noticed. It is scary but it is reality. Best case for the kids is that they would be hanging on to a cooler and stayed together so they would be a some what bigger itty bitty spot in a great big ocean.
The reality is that at this point, unless the kids were able to take water with them, they have been without water for going on five days...
The media reports have been pretty bad, nothing new there, but at least I have not seen a report blaming the incident on the Bermuda Triangle or Atlantis.
Later,
Dan
Just saw this on our local station. Not sure where this happened but it is applicable. The link is a video and not text which I can't stand since I can read the facts faster than watching a video. Missing man found trapped under tree :: WRAL.com
A 60+ year old man went for a walk and was found seven days after going missing. For some reason, he went down a steep slope a 100 or so yards from his house, slipped and then slid down hill until becoming pinned under a fallen tree. What are the %^&*( odds of that happening? He was pinned so that he could not get out. Someone passing by happened to notice him and it took the jaws of life to free him. He would not have lasted much longer.
Later,
Dan
A 60+ year old man went for a walk and was found seven days after going missing. For some reason, he went down a steep slope a 100 or so yards from his house, slipped and then slid down hill until becoming pinned under a fallen tree. What are the %^&*( odds of that happening? He was pinned so that he could not get out. Someone passing by happened to notice him and it took the jaws of life to free him. He would not have lasted much longer.
Later,
Dan
If they are wearing life jackets and floating or holding onto something which is at surface level, sonar could be of help but it's still such a small area of such a vast expanse of water that the odds are very much against you.
At 11:37 AM the AP announced the search had been suspended. At 11:48 the USCG Southeast District announced that was false and there were no plans to suspend it today.
At noon Wednesday, three vehicles pulled into the driveway of the family's home, and representatives from the U.S. Coast Guard, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and Tequesta Police got out and met with the family.
psneeld
Guru
Interviewed a National Guard pilot that went down off North Carolina and drifted to near NJ in about a week.
After his survival water packets ran out....he said the highpoint of every day was liking the dew off his raft every morning.
My point about the fishing boat was that, even concentrated looking can fail and that is why following search areas overlap so coverage is more assured, but still never perfect.
If the boys have at least a cooler, and are extraordinarily resilient and resourceful, there is still a remote possibility of survival.
After his survival water packets ran out....he said the highpoint of every day was liking the dew off his raft every morning.
My point about the fishing boat was that, even concentrated looking can fail and that is why following search areas overlap so coverage is more assured, but still never perfect.
If the boys have at least a cooler, and are extraordinarily resilient and resourceful, there is still a remote possibility of survival.
psneeld
Guru
I was thinking possibly passive listening for so d from the boys....assuming at some point they might make so ds audible in water for a longer distance than they could be seen.
This may go well beyond what the expdrt rescue guys would normally do...the media and who's who may now determine the length duration of sesrching.
You're welcome.
despite the position of some, as long as there is coordination and discipline, the private hiring of additional air/sea resources, is not a bad idea.
The flip side is, if you have a group of unguided, undisciplined, wannabe hero's on scene, it can not only foul things up but be extremely dangerous to whatever professionals are on scene. :-(
I've been on both sides of that coin, in both land and sea searches.
As a coastie, we never had an issue with outside resources, as long as they played with the team and didn't pose an additional threat.
On the commercial side, we never entered a search, without authorization and coordination of the agency in charge.
When psneeld brought up hiring side scans vice additional air support, I kind of wondered what he had in mind? As he later mentioned though, the water's too deep there for conventional commercially available Side Scans.
Commercial research and recovery vessels would be about the only non-governmental option I can think of at the moment. Maybe some of the "treasure hunters" or the environmental research vessels with their robotics/submersibles could be of assistance?
Psneeld-brother, the news link was just some interesting reading. As I said, not bad for the
Media, but definitely not "official" news.
OD
Gotta love the press!! :-(
Can't begin to tell you how many times I've heard a report on the news of some crime, and the facts and information was so fouled up as to almost be unrecognizable...and I was on scene! ! Lol
Psneeld- gotta love psychics lol
Can't believe people still turn to them. Desperation is a horrible thing...
