From the
Navy Times
Coast Guard finds windsurfer who went out during storm
Like looking for a black cat in a dark room, the Coast Guard set out after midnight Friday to search for a windsurfer from the Hampton Roads, Va., area who’d gone out the previous afternoon during a tornado watch.
Miraculously, 13 hours later, the service found the missing man.
But he initially declined to be rescued by a helicopter-based aviation survival technician because it meant leaving his board behind.
He was then picked up by the crew of the 87-foot patrol boat Cochito, according to Public Affairs Specialist 2nd Class Lawrence Chambers.
“This is obviously good news,” Chambers said of the stunning rescue, which had the Coast Guard searching for a tiny sail and surfboard at the juncture of the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake Bay. “The survivability model gave him about 15 hours.”
The man, identified by the Coast Guard as a “39-year-old British national who lives in Hampton Roads,” set sail off Virginia Beach at about 3 p.m. Thursday, a time when much of the mid-Atlantic coast was under severe thunderstorm and tornado watches.
He was wearing a short-sleeved wet suit but no life jacket, Chambers said.
The man was reported missing at 11:44 p.m. The Coast Guard then dispatched Cochito, an HH-60 Jayhawk helicopter from Air Station Elizabeth City, N.C., and a 47-foot motor lifeboat crew from Station Little Creek.
At dawn, a C-130, a Coast Guard Auxiliary aircraft, a 41-foot rescue boat and local fire department boats joined the mix. The man was located nearly 16 nautical miles northeast of his starting point, Chambers said.
“The information we got was that he was pretty adventurous with his board and liked to go offshore, so we based our search grid on that,” Chambers said.
The service recommends that all recreational boaters heed weather warnings and craft advisories.
The Coast Guard had posted a small-craft advisory for the time period when the windsurfer went out.
“The lesson here is, when you go out on the water, mind the weather and your safety,” Chambers said.