Crime & Safety

Coast Guard Releases Audio From Missing Sailboat

The agency said it hopes that someone will be able to identify the voice from the recording of the distress call.

The Coast Guard released Monday the audio of a distress call from a sailboat sinking off the Monterey Bay coast in hopes of identifying the voice of one of four people who are still missing after abandoning the vessel.

Still, the Coast Guard suspended the search for a family of four missing boaters off the Monterey Coast Tuesday. The search expanded 20,000 square miles to Hawaii, the Seattle area and even up into Canada.

The Coast Guard does not know who the boat was registered to, or who was onboard. Calls to harbors in California have failed to locate the boat and database searches have come up empty. They also haven't received any missing persons reports.

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The agency hoped that someone would be able to identify the voice from the recording of the distress call.

The message was sent from the 29-foot sailboat identified as the Charmblow around 5:30 p.m. local time Sunday. At the time, the boat was believed to be off Pillar Point in Half Moon Bay, but was later determinded to be about 60 miles west of Monterey Bay.

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The operator of the vessel indicated to the Coast Guard that the boat did not have a working GPS system, life raft or emergency beacon. The four apparently were apparently relying on a makeshift raft cobbled together from life rings and a water cooler.

In the radio messages, the Coast Guard was only able to determine that the four included a man, his wife, their 4-year-old son and his cousin.

Listen to the distress call here on USA Today.

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