Missing sailor found 12 days after "mayday"

[Island Time O25]

Missing boater found alive after 12 days at sea - GrindTV.com

Missing boater found alive after 12 days at sea
Search for sailboat suspended five days after initial mayday call from Ron Ingraham; eight days later, a second distress call is picked up by Coast Guard

December 10, 2014 by David Strege
58


Hawaii News Now – KGMB and KHNL

On Thanksgiving Day, Ron Ingraham sent a mayday saying his sailboat was taking on water. He gave his GPS location as approximately 46 miles west of Kailua-Kona. Then all communications from the missing boater were lost.

The Coast Guard immediately began searching for the 25-foot vessel, but after five days of scouring 12,000 square miles of ocean, the Coast Guard suspended the search for the 67-year-old.

Eight days later, the Coast Guard command center picked up a distress call.

“We got a mayday here. Mayday. This is the Malia. Anybody picking this up?”

It was Ron Ingraham.

Missing boater found alive
The sailboat Malia, owned by the missing boater. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard

Remarkably, after a long gap in communications with the missing boater, the Coast Guard heard the second call Tuesday morning at 7:55 and got fresh coordinates, which were 64 miles south of Honolulu, the Coast Guard reported.

Fortunately, the Navy Destroyer USS Paul Hamilton was three miles away, located the sailboat and took Ingraham aboard and rendered aid. He was weak, hungry, and dehydrated but otherwise OK, the Coast Guard reported. He was transferred to the Coast Guard Cutter Rush at 5 p.m. Tuesday until the cutter Kiska could transport him and his boat back to Hawaii.

Ingraham told ABC News that his radio was destroyed, but he managed to make it work for his last mayday call by rigging his radio with a coat hanger and some wire. At one point, a rogue waved knocked him into the water, “but I had a rope so I towed myself in.”

As for how he survived for 12 days, Ingraham told ABC News, “I’m a fisherman so I caught fish. It wasn’t as good as a sushi bar, but that’s how I hydrated.”

The Coast Guard has raw video of the rescue:


On Tuesday, Zakary, Ingraham’s son, received the good news from the Coast Guard.

“They said, ‘Well, we found your dad. He’s alive and well on his boat,’” Zakary Ingraham of St. Joseph’s, Missouri, told Hawaii News Now. “For him to be found is awesome. I can’t believe it.

Ron Ingraham
Missing boater Ron Ingraham in handout photo

“Twelve days, man. He’s a champ. He’s tough …”

How tough? Zakary told CNN how tough.

“You know who Rambo is? Rambo has a picture of my dad on his wall.”

When the commanding officer for the Coast Guard called Zakary on December 1 to tell him they were calling off the search, he told them they shouldn’t, saying “I don’t feel like he’s dead. I don’t feel it.”

Zakary was proven correct.

Ron Ingraham, an experienced fisherman, was sailing from Molokai (his home) to Lanai when he got into trouble.

A friend of his told Hawaii News Now that both masts were broken and he was sailing on a little auxiliary sail attempting to get back to Hawaii.

“[There’s] a lot of joy around the command center to know that, OK, he’s alive and he’s going to be OK,” Coast Guard Lt. Scott Carr told Hawaii News Now.

The same could be said for Ingraham’s family.

[powerelectronic]

Does anyone know the make and model of Ron Ingraham's sailboat?

[a64pilot]

I'm no boat ID type, but just form the pictures it sure did look like this.
BAYFIELD 25 sailboat specifications and details on sailboatdata.com

[DeepFrz]

Just letting you know that this has already been much discussed on another thread over the past few days.

[powerelectronic]

"Just letting you know that this has already been much discussed on another thread over the past few days."


You failed to inform us where that thread can be found.

[Valmika]

Is this the wrong video and photo? The coast guard said both his masts were broken but it looked like the one on the boat was intact and it was a sloop rig.

[Steadman Uhlich]

Another thread or discussion on this same topic (boat and sailor and incident):

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ay-137876.html