TEQUESTA, Fla. — Hopes for the survival of two 14-year-old boys missing at sea for nearly a week rest on three items their families believe may be keeping them afloat: orange life jackets, a white Yeti cooler and a metal
TEQUESTA, Fla. — Hopes for the survival of two 14-year-old boys missing at sea for nearly a week rest on three items their families believe may be keeping them afloat: orange life jackets, a white Yeti cooler and a metal cover from their capsized boat’s engine.
“We believe the boys made floating devices with the items missing from the boat,” the relatives of Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen said in a flier bearing the teens’ photos.
The large cooler is key, said Matt Kuntz, Austin’s uncle. “We’re hoping they are on that cooler,” he told reporters Thursday. “That’s what we’re looking for.”
The boys were last seen July 24 when they motored out of Jupiter Inlet to go fishing offshore. Their overturned 19-foot SeaCraft was discovered Sunday some 70 miles east of Daytona Beach.
On Thursday, the Coast Guard said the hunt for the teens would extend at least into Friday morning. From the air and on the water, searchers were concentrating their efforts in an area about 100 miles off the coast of Charleston, S.C., more than 500 miles from where the pair set out.
Volunteers in private planes and boats are also taking part in the search, with some fuel and other expenses being covered by more than $240,000 raised through a GoFundMe account, according to the website.
Kuntz said, “We have about 20 planes in the air privately, along with numerous boats.”
The area searched in the past week totals more than 43,000 square miles, the Coast Guard said, and has involved planes, boats and ships from various state and federal agencies, including the U.S. Navy and Air Force.
Early on in the search, Coast Guard Capt. Mark Fedor said the boys could possibly survive in the Atlantic for up to five days. Hopes for survival now extend well beyond that estimate.
“Without knowing what equipment they have, I would say dehydration is the main problem,” said Steven Callahan, who in 1982 survived 76 days at sea off the coast of Africa in an inflatable raft.
Callahan, 63, who lives in Lemoine, Maine, said that if the teens are in the water, time may be running out.
Yet, he said, “I hate to write people off in these cases. If they were smart kids and the weather looked dicey, they probably got into life jackets.
“Tales of miracles do happen.”
The families of the teens have been unwavering in their belief that the boys are still alive and waiting to be rescued. The boys bonded through their love of fishing and being on the water, and despite their youth have spent many hours boating with their families and without adult company.
Carly Black, Austin’s mother, has described the boys as resourceful, calling them “little MacGyvers,” after the inventive hero of a television series.
Black said she knew the two were headed to an offshore fishing spot when they left the Tequesta dock where they gassed up the boat.
But a recording of a 911 call made by Nick Korniloff, Perry’s stepfather, to Jupiter police at 4:23 p.m. July 24 indicates he did not know the boys planned to leave the Intracoastal Waterway. “We had no idea they were going offshore,” he said.
During that call, the dispatcher asks Korniloff, “And you know we had a storm before, too?”
At 3:15 that afternoon, the National Weather Service issued a marine warning in advance of a brief but intense squall that moved over the water from on shore. The teens may have been caught in that squall, authorities said.
Even if the Coast Guard calls off the search for the teens after Friday, the families have indicated they will continue to look, using donations to the “The Perry &Austin Rescue Fund.”
“We will continue looking every day,” Kuntz said.
