JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Two weeks ago the fishing boat Carol Ann was supposed to be back in Brunswick, GA after a 4 day fishing trip. In that time the Coast Guard has called off its search and the families of the 3 missing boaters have taken it upon themselves to raise money to continue the search through the sea and sky.
Thursday afternoon a company called Airtec committed a plane to help search for the 3 missing boaters aboard the Carol Ann. Airtec has state of the art sensors on aircrafts for the purpose of airborne surveillance. That plane will join a group scanning thousands of miles of open ocean.
The search for the Carol Ann continued above the water as photographers Kevin Schwartz and Jameson Hearn scoured the ocean east of Nantucket.
"We're looking for orange rafts, we're looking for anything that looks like it could belong on a boat, anything shiny, white spots where a mirror could reflect the sun," said Schwartz.
The Carol Ann never sent a distress signal, however the boat did have an EPIRB, which is an emergency position indicating radio beacon.
West Marine has multiple stores on the First Coast and has a wide variety of EPIRBS, which could save your life in an emergency on the ocean.
"Within 10 seconds it is transmitting to a satellite above you giving your GPS coordinates and then sending to whatever local search and rescue group is available," said Nels Gyland, a salesman at West Marine.
The Carol Ann had a manuel EPIRB, which requires someone onboard to activate it; there are also automatic EPIRBs.
"If no one is able to turn the EPIRB on, when the boat goes down and the EPIRB gets wet it deploys automatically, it has a hydrostatic release and turns itself on," said Gyland, who doesn't just sell EPIRBs for West Marine, his life was saved by one in February 2023.
"I'm here today because of an EPIRB," said Gyland, "I was on a boat that went down of the coast of Puerto Rico and thank god the coast guard was there to pull me out."
Meanwhile, the search continues for the Carol Ann.
"We still think there's 100% chance there's hope and we're doing everything we can to find them," said Schwartz, "we're both emotionally invested in this and hoping to find them."
If the Carol Ann has been in the Gulf Stream for 2 weeks then Thursday and Friday are critical for the search because soon the boat and the 3 boaters would be getting close to a point of the stream that splits off in multiple directions, meaning the boat could go anywhere in the Atlantic.