Jib Yacht Club and Marina
Posted on 07/28/2015 5:06:07 AM PDT by from occupied ga
As Jim Dulin struggled mightily to steer his 30-foot fishing boat away from an ugly storm and into the Jupiter Inlet early Friday afternoon, he was startled to see a small boat heading the opposite direction into the rough weather.
Among the dozens of vessels in the water, Dulin said the small boat carrying two young males was the only one not racing toward the safety of the inlet.
“I said to myself, ‘Those kids are crazy,’” said Dulin, a Jupiter resident and commercial fisherman for 20 years. “There’s no way they couldn’t see that storm. The storm was really black, the temperature dropped and you could tell it was going to be a really mean one.”
Although Dulin couldn’t be positive, he said it’s likely the passengers on the small boat were Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen, the Jupiter 14-year-olds who have been missing since they took off on their 19-foot boat from the Jupiter Inlet.
The boys’ capsized vessel was found Sunday just south of Daytona Beach. Coast Guard crews predict, based on currents, that the boys are north of the capsized boat, and plan to focus search efforts on that area.
Friday’s storm began in the early afternoon and forecasters were watching the radar, preparing an alert to warn mariners of bad weather boiling to the north and west.
The storm first smacked Stuart with a 38 mph gust recorded at 1:07 p.m. before rolling through Hobe Sound and stalking into Jupiter.
While the moments leading to the teens’ disappearance are a mystery, the National Weather Service issued a special marine statement about the line of expanding thunderstorms at 1:41 p.m.
Ninety-four minutes later, the alert was heightened to a warning — a signal that wind gusts were topping 38 mph and boaters “should seek safe harbor immediately.”
“It looks to me like they probably encountered these thunderstorms,” said David Zierdan, state climatologist for the Florida Climate Center in Tallahassee. “Other than the thunderstorms, the weather conditions were pretty benign.”
It’s the kind of weather South Florida summers are known for. Afternoon storms kick up quickly with the west winds, turning friendly seas dangerous in moments.
“Had they been out over the open water, they could have had some rapidly changing conditions,” said John Pendergrast, senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Melbourne, about the two 14-year-olds who have been missing since Friday. “It’s too hard to say whether weather directly could have caused whatever it is that happened to them, but there were some localized wind gusts and precipitation.”
Searchers were still looking for the teens late Monday, following a crude road map provided by Mother Nature in the Gulf Stream, winds and currents.
Searchers discovered the teens’ capsized boat Sunday more than 60 miles off the coast of Daytona Beach, sucked 170 miles north by the powerful current of water that parallels Florida’s coast.
The area of the find was no surprise to Dmitry Dukhovski, an associate scientist of physical oceanography for Florida State University.
He said the Gulf Stream accelerates as it is squeezed through a channel created between the Bahamas and the Florida coast. The pace picks up to about 3-and-half mph and stays swift until it reaches Daytona Beach.
“They should be in the Gulf Stream,” Dukhovski said about the teens. “They probably wouldn’t even know they were caught in it because in the ocean, you can’t feel the motion.”
“You cannot swim against it,” he added.
If Dukhovski wasn’t surprised by the boat’s location, United States Coast Guard Petty Officer and public affairs specialist Mark Barney said it was alarming to find it so far north.
Judging by the boat’s location, the search area Monday was moved to about 60 miles east of Jacksonville and north to Fernandina Beach, Barney said.
“We’re on day three and a half, going on four, and we’re all the way on the border with Georgia,” Barney said. “It’s very scary.”
But not hopeless, said Christine Van Dillen, assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Florida.
“I definitely think they should continue the rescue and search, especially if they had some sort of equipment that could keep them above the water,” Van Dillen said.
Coast guard officials said Monday they believe the boys may have fashioned a raft with a cooler, life jackets and an engine cover.
Still, just because Gulf Stream water temperatures are in the low 80s, doesn’t mean the teens are safe from hypothermia.
Van Dillen said body temperatures will start to lower when someone is submerged in even 80-degree water. Once it dips to 93 degrees — the normal temperature is 98.6 — organs start to shut down.
“There is still hope,” Van Dillen said. “I hate to give false hope, but there are also people who are young and fit and will pull through.
You and me both, brother. You and me both...
If true- wow! They’d be cold, exhausted and very thirsty.
You can only last 3 days without fresh water, but I suppose there was some rain they could have managed to drink. I hope they beat the odds and get found.
I'm not buying it. The CG just left the parents house and said there were no updates.
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