I'm reaching out to see if anyone knows of a registry of 'lost & found' boats. The
boat in question is a Westsail 32, named 'TLC'. She was left adrift 520 miles south of Easter island, abandoned in late December 2011. A
malfunction of the back stay affected
steering though Thomas L. Corogin persisted two days attempting to jury rig and sail to
Chile. Failing that, he called for aid and was pulled aboard a freighter. The
boat was left adrift but with the main
hatch left open. Corogin had assumed he would be allowed to go back to retrieve personal items. That did not happen. The Chilean
Navy met the freighter and he was brought ashore.
My connection to the boat is that it was my family's boat with
interior built by my dad, named 'Running Free', and a name appropriate for a boat we believe may still be doing just that! Westsail boats are tough and we imagine it might have landed somewhere. Tom Corogin passed away in Nov. 2015 but our
family still wonders of what happened to our boat. If anyone has any ideas of how to find her, greatly appreciated.