http://www.examiner.com/a
Local Coast Guard suspends search for sailor
Katie Worth, The Examiner
2008-03-17 11:00:00.0
SAN FRANCISCO -
The two men who went missing Saturday aboard the 32-foot sailboat .Daisy,. competed in a boat race despite an advisory warning against the sailing of small crafts as high seas and high winds swept the Bay this weekend.
One of the two sailors, Anthony Harrow, 72, of Larkspur, would never return alive from Saturday.s Double Handed Lightship Race, a daylong competition organized by the Island Yacht Club. Harrow.s body was found by San Mateo County sheriff.s deputies around 11:20 a.m. Sunday at a tide pool area near Moss Beach in San Mateo County, about 20 miles south of the spot the sailboat was last seen.
An hour before Harrow.s body was found, a rutter, wood planks and other debris from the boat were found about four nautical miles west of Daly City, U.S. Coast Guard spokeswoman Lauren Kolumbic said.
His sailing mate, 67-year-old Kirby Gale, is still missing. The search for Gale was suspended at 6 p.m. Sunday, Kolumbic said.
The Coast Guard had conducted three search operations, Kolumbic said, but decided to call the search off late Sunday, based on the lack of new information and the low probability that Gale is still alive.
Though Saturday was mostly sunny, a small-craft warning had been issued because of high winds and high seas. Sea swells reached 16 feet, and gusts of wind blew up to 35 knots, National Weather Service forecaster Bob Benjamin said.
A small-craft warning applies to boats less than about 65 feet, Coast Guard officials said.
It was pretty bumpy out there,. said Stephen Buckingham, the winner of the race in the same division as Gale.s boat. .The night before, the forecast was 16-foot swells at 16-second intervals and I was thinking of not going..
The daylong race, which took Daisy and about 45 other boats from Sausalito to a buoy about 14 miles west of the bridge and back, was scheduled to end around 4 p.m. Daisy was about 7 nautical miles offshore at 1 p.m. Saturday when the boat was last seen, said Pat DeQuatro, the Coast Guard.s chief for response operations.
When the boat had not returned by 6 p.m., the Coast Guard began a search for the men. The initial search involved two coast guard boats, a helicopter and a fixed-wing aircraft and covered 1,347 square miles, as far south as Monterey Bay, Kolumbic said.
Saturday.s incident comes less than four months after two fishermen were lost at sea after going crab fishing off the San Mateo County coast.
Officials from the club could not be reached for comment Sunday.
No comments:
Post a Comment