Corrections Coming, Schooner Nina

Reporting on the missing Niña story made sense since I had been reporting on another missing yacht, the Lady Domina.  Little did I know, my casual reporting would turn into a major blog about the search for the Niña.  It has been a cherished experience, working with family members and a dedicated team of volunteers at Texas Equusearch.  As it turns out, there are plenty of errors in my postings which I will repair over the course of time.  

Fortunately, as I got closer to the source, I was able to avoid many errors, like the false report the Niña was not in good shape.  The truth is, the Dyche family made the Niña part of their lives, spending countless hours and their fortune renovating the historic schooner.  The boat was rated as being "sound" in 2012 by professionals who had been aboard her.  This is a major departure from the reports by professional journalists who repeated speculation by people who had never been aboard the Niña and lacked the qualifications to determine her condition if they had been aboard her.

One big error on my part was the inclusion of this photo in the early reports:

I probably got the photo from one of the New Zealand papers.  My error.  This is not the tender that was aboard the Niña.  Instead, it is a tender for the boat Ninita.  The tender that is aboard the Niña has pointed or "canoe" ends.  You can see part of the tender in this photograph:

The top of the tender on Nina is covered, but clearly,
the tender has a canoe or pointed end.

If the Niña did go down, she left evidence.  Kind people are watching for things that are floating or which have washed up on various beaches.  We know because people have been in contact with the families.  So far, nothing that has been found appears to have any association with Niña.  Still, we don't want lingering misconceptions, so we have included the picture of the tender here.

Some people have asked, 'are they still searching for the Niña this late?'  The answer is a resounding YES!  The families are still searching.  They are working on raising more funds and talking about how best to search remote places.  The Tasman Sea and Pacific are odd places which swallow boats up and spin them in the currents for years.  Just recently, we witnessed the survival of Jose Salvador Alvarenga who had been at sea for 13 to 14 months with no provisions.

The Ninita, sloop rigged

Another false report, again which I checked carefully before going to press, is that Texas Equusearch (TES) has a cross to bear in this search.  We know some people think the non-profit Texas based search organization is making something on the search because we get those veiled emails questioning motives.  For those who are in doubt, the record should be square.  TES volunteers take nothing.  Ralph Baird, Larry Slack and other volunteers have given relentless hours of their valuable time, at cost to family and fortune, to pass the legacy of good tidings in helping locate the missing Niña 7.  They have been troopers in doing what every one of us should be willing to do when a loved one goes missing, which is to pull out all the stops and go full bore, be of service to others.  Yes, people are that dedicated to giving themselves to their community.

If you are just coming to the search for the historic boat and want to read more, you can start here.  The families have an update page which a dedicated volunteer has helped put together for the families.  You can check it out here.

There is a lot of the Niña story which I have not been able to tell.  My silence falls well within the ethics required of a journalist.  One day, there will be "the rest of the story," as Paul Harvey used to say.  One part of the story which remains unwritten, the rescue of the crew.  While I cannot say much, I can say this:  I believe in my heart there is a strong chance this crew is floating in the Tasman Sea or washed up in a remote location.  The families ask all people in the North Tasman Sea to keep a sharp lookout, and for the rest of us to keep the crew in their blessings.  

Still Looking For The Lady Domina

The mystery behind the disappearance of the Lady Domina remains.  To date, no one has reported seeing the yacht since she left St. Martin March 31st, 2013.  She was headed across the Atlantic Ocean en route to Norway.  The first planned stop was the Azores.

Family/Friends

After the families reported the Lady Domina had not arrived, an alert was sent out.  The inquiry following the disappearance turned up more questions than it answered.  The yacht was reportedly cleared out of Puerto Rico by the U.S. Coast Guard on April 5th, 2013, even though the crew of the Lady Domina never planned to go to Puerto Rico.


Subsequently, friends of the crew overheard the Coast Guard side of a discussion in which a yacht identified as the Lady Domina requested weather outside of Puerto Rico.  The May 3rd, 2013, call placed the Lady Domina above water long after authorities concluded she sank in a late April storm.  

Family

The U.S. Coast Guard refused to discuss the supposed call.  Instead, inquiries were referred to Rescue Coordination Center heading up the search.  By then, they had suspended the search.


In June of 2013, a professional skipper reported a yacht like the Lady Domina was being towed by Sea Rescue near St. Martin.  The local Coast Guard was alerted could not identify any instance of towing a yacht like the Lady Domina during the time. 

Bill Dietrich Photo

No one knows what the fate of the Lady Domina is today.  Please take a good look at the photographs.  The yacht is very distinctive.  Should you see this yacht, please contact us!  The families say the worst part about a disappearance at sea is not knowing the ultimate fate of the yacht.


Do you have any more clues or tips regarding the Lady Domina?  Please contact immigrants2bfree@gmail.com.  Please put Lady Domina in the subject bar as we monitor thousands of email and web traffic sources.

Norwegian Sailors Rescued After Dismasting Near Azores

A Norwegian couple expressed their gratitude after being rescued after their yacht was dismasted in heavy seas while Crossing from the Azores to the Hebrides with a final destination of Norway. 

 Irish naval vessle Le Aoife tows Alice II

"We are happy to be ashore," said Erik Ostberg once safe in the harbor.  "We were very worried when the mast came down."

Ostberg and his wife, Gretta, were on a dream cruise around the Caribbean.  They had been cruising the gentle waters of the Caribbean for 13 months.  They were on their way back to their home town of Haugesund in Norway when they encountered "raging seas". 

 Haugesund Norway

The couple were sailing their wooden yacht, Alice II, into the teeth of heavy winds and seas when the bowsprit was ripped away.  Then the mast fell, taking with it the Norwegian couple's best chance for communication.  Without their VHF radio the elderly couple were not even able to call for help.

Rescue Crew and Erik and Gretta Ostberg

The couple finally spotted the French trawler the "Bikaine".  Flares were used to attract attention.  After what must have seemed like an eternity, the Irish navy came to the rescue, towing the damaged sailboat to port.  Two crewmembers from the Le Aoife boarded the Alice II while the Ostberg couple recuperated on the Le Aoife.  The vessel was comanded by Lt. Cdr. Ericka Downing.  

Cmd. Downing

Le Aoife is an offshore patrol vessel specifically modified for stability.  The ship played a major role in locating the flight recorded of a downed Air-India flight which crashed off of the South Irisih coast in 1985.

Last month the French yacht, Grain de Soleil was sunk during heavy weather in the Atlantic.  Another yacht, the Lady Domina, of unknown registry, disappeared under odd circumstances around May 3, 2013.  The reported intention of the crew was to cross the Atlantic from St. Martin to the Azores.  Neither yacht nor their crews have been found.

Lady Domina On Radio 1150 AM

Tim Paynter and Willie Rouge talked about the missing yacht, Lady Domina, on 1150 AM radio, Denver.  They asked all of their listeners to phone home and ask their relatives to be on the lookout for the missing yacht.  

Demographics show listeners of Un Dia Sin Fronteras come from mostly Spanish speaking countries. Those include the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Puerto Rico and a host of different places that are in the Caribbean

The Lady Domina

The Lady Domina Disappeared March 31st, 2013.  She was reported to have arrived and left Puerto Rico on April 4th, 2013.  Some people believe she is taking the long route home to Norway.  Others think she may have had engine problems

File Photo

and is floating in the Atlantic.  She carried a large amount of food and water.  The crew were solid people and good sailors.

You can listen to the program HERE.  The program is in Spanish.  Just hit the button "Show 1013".

Marigot Bay, St. Martin

If the yacht is spotted please notify us HERE, and Tore Christiansen HERE.

We are also looking for pictures, videos, personal anecdotes, of the boat and crew, anything that might give us a clue as to where this boat is.

One suspicion is the Lady Domina was hijacked, though hijackings on the route are rare.  Such event could have occurred while the yacht was in Puerto Rico.  If so, the yacht could be ANYWHERE including in central and South American ports.

San Juan Puerto Rico

Also missing are the crew from the French yacht, Grain de Soleil.  The boat sank after encountering a severe storm about 500 miles Southwest of the Azores.  An active search continued for an extended period of time.  However, no sign of the missing crew was found.  

All ships and all sailors to the region are asked to keep a sharp lookout for the Grain de Soleil and the Lady Domina.



Pingates.com

Lady Domina Update

We were encouraged to hear Craig D. Wilkie, a friend of missing Lady Domina crewman, Brian Fritzner, is taking an active role in the search for Lady Domina.  For those who have not heard, Lady Domina is a 75 foot, home-built motorsailor, which went missing after departing March 31, 2013 from the Caribbean Island of St. Martin.

SV Lady Domina

In my initial contact with Craig, I encouraged him to be aggressive in the search.  If the departure date is correct, the yacht is way over-due for it's intended destination in the Azores.  If the boat went down and the crewmembers are in the black liferaft which was reported to be on Lady Domina, they are in desperate need of help.

I was a little discouraged when Craig flamed me on the cruising board where we first learned of him.  Craig said I was playing games and withholding information.  Actually, the night before, it was Craig who sent me an email telling me he saw no value in the interviews I had been doing in the yachting community. He said the case had been well publicized and his only interest was in getting out an alert.  He wanted to get the authorities to launch a search.  He was not willing to answer any of our questions about Brian in hopes of developing a lead in the disappearance, or to even learn if Brian was like Anders Mosteid, a youth who answered a wanted-ad for crew and ended up missing.

My response to Craig was to advise him not a single newspaper anywhere that had published a story about the Lady Domina that I am aware of (in English).  If you don't know the boat is missing, or you don't know the name of the boat, you would never know the boat was over-due from an internet search.  In fact, one person we messaged this week thought the yacht had already been found because not much was being posted.  Wouldn't it be nice to have every person in every marina and on every boat in the Caribbean watching for the missing yacht?

Why is publishing the account of a missing yacht outside of the internet important?  There are several reasons.  First, it is important to alert non-internet people about these things.  Young people don't realize not everyone is internet savvy.  Yes, the stone age still exists, even in modern times!

Second, when stories end up in newsprint they take on an odd sense of importance.  It is that very odd sense of importance that can sometimes tacitly be used to convince authorities to do what they don't want to do.  We hated to break the news to Craig.  Search and Rescue authorities don't like spending a half million on searches just because someone jumps up and down and waves their hands.  

Which brings us to the third reason.  If we could at least pinpoint a last known sighting, or wreckage, or witness accounts-because we got the word out to a cruiser who was not watching the internet for the term Lady Domina-then the family might have more

leverage convincing SAR to spend their money on a search.  One hell of a good reason to stick an EPIRB on a boat is so the authorities know an emergency has taken place.  At that point, they have to search.  Sadly, Lady Domina reportedly did not carry an EPIRB.


Meanwhile, Brian's partner sent me an email in which she established down to the moment when the Lady Domina left St. Martin.  She also indicated she was "100% positive" the yacht was headed to the Azores direct, and not through Puerto Rico as some people had been told.  

I learned a long time ago, never to argue with someone who is 100% positive.  It may sound funny, but in this case, Brian's partner is in a much better position to know than I am.  What could I do but encourage her to stand by her guns, and let's all hope for the best.

Late today when I tuned into the board I read a scathing post by Craig accusing me of refusing to divulge information.   Both Craig and Brian's girlfriend have my email.  Neither one of them have ever asked me anything.  That is why people don't like to get involved, because their intentions are misunderstood.  Sometimes worried friends and relatives take their anxiety out on the first object which crosses their path.

Still, it is a good thing to have an aggressive investigation for a boat that is 70 days out on what the crew said would be a 15 day trip to the Azores.

Yesterday, interviews revealed an entirely new prospect for the Lady Domina.  If the yacht went to Puerto Rico first, there is an entirely new search grid to consider.  Additionally, likely the yacht will not have been out for as long a time as most suspected.  That gives the rational person reason to speculate about the increased chances of survival for the crew.

What remains a mystery is why the Lady Domina would have gone to Puerto Rico without advising it's crew Puerto Rico was the next destination.  I am taking a bit of a leap here by assuming Brian's girlfriend, being 100% positive the yacht was heading direct to the Azores, meant She did not know the boat was going to Puerto Rico, hence Brian did not know, either.  Also, if the boat went to Puerto Rico, why didn't any of the crew call home to advise of the course change?

For every logical speculation comes more logical speculation.  Perhaps the Lady Domina Captain, Olvind Slettvolt, was playing it safe, staying closer in, while he tested crew and yacht.  Perhaps the Lady Domina never made landfall in Puerto Rico so no one could call home.  Perhaps the boat never went to Puerto Rico in the first place.

With the appearance of people representing crewmembers we will take a lower profile approach to the Lady Domina.  "Too many chiefs can cause confused indians" we say in Colorado.  However, we will still continue following the Lady Domina and it's strange Odyssey.  

If you have information about the Lady Domina, please let us know.  If you have pictures of the crew or the yacht, or videos, please send them to us.  We are interested in interviewing all people who know anything about this story.  Our objective is to assemble first hand witness reports of crew intentions, crew experience, crew statements, non-crew observations, information about the condition of the boat and any other detail that might give us another plausible solution for the disappearance of the Lady Domina.

Please submit your information here.

Above all, we wish to provide hope and support to the families of the missing sailors.  We wish to encourage Craig D. Wilikie and Brian Fritzner's Patner in their efforts.  We are still convinced the Lady Domina is out there and will appear on the horizon soon.  Without hope, not much remains.

Lady Domina Disappears, Family Shattered

View Marigot Bay, St Martin in a larger map

The family of Anders Mosteid is shattered over the disappearance of the yacht, Lady Domina and their son along with it.  Presumably, on April 1st, 2013, Lady Domina weighed anchor from a harbor on the Island of  St. Martin on her way to Norway.  She was to stop at the Azores en route.

Anders Mosteid, with permission and respect from a family member who asked to remain nameless.

The word "supposedly weighed anchor" applies here because no one has come forward saying they witnessed the 75 foot home-built sailboat weigh anchor.  No one has come forward and said they heard any VHF call throughout Lady Domina's presumed route.  No boat, ship or agency has admitted hearing a word from Lady Domina or any of her five member crew since April 1st, 2013.  As far as we know, not a single person has put on their wet suit to check the anchorage where the Lady Domina was last seen.

Part of the problem with the disappearance of any yacht is the "leave me alone" attitude in the cruising community.  Many cruisers are "out there" for more reasons than their love for salt air.  Part of the cruising lifestyle is a sailor's desire to be off of the grid.  When sailors talk to an outsider about what they know of a fellow sailor, it is kind of like ratting on someone.  Sailors are a closed mouthed-group outside of the community.  They have every right to maintain their privacy by the thin sailing line.

Except when it comes to the investigation of a missing yacht.  At some point the right of privacy and the mutual respect sailors have for keeping the gossip within the community, and away from the families, must give way to the right of potential survivors.  On chance they are still "out there", don't they need for every possible eye-ball to be scanning the horizon for a lost Lady Domina?  There is a need for every single sailor and every tourist and every sailor's mom and every tourist's mom to be looking for the Lady Domina.  It does not matter if that is someone watching the surf for a cushion marked LD, or for a crew to be scanning the horizon wherever they are, it all may count.  We should look in all the right places.  When that does not work, we should look in the LEAST likely places.  That is not happening.

 Photo Appeared in Danish Press

In fact, the Lady Domina story, along with another lost yacht, the Grain de Soleil story, have not been told in the American press.  A thorough internet search yields a hand-full of posts on various blogs.  There is the mention on Noonsite and other distress boards.  Fortunately, Tore Christiansen sounded the alarm by translating Norwegian posts into English and re-posting inquiries on English boards.  More than that, not much has been said.  When we eliminate the English community from the internet search grid we are eliminating a large population of people who could lend a hand if they only knew about the disappearances.

Unlike the Lady Domina, an EPIRB signal was received for the missing Grain de Soleil.  What that means is we have a later known position for the Grain de Soleil crew.  It also means that crew may be in dire need to be found.

PLEASE INFORM US of any knowledge you have about the missing yachts and the people who are on them.  We would like to have pictures, anecdotes, the date of your most recent conversation and anything else you can tell us about the missing yachts and the people who gave those yachts life.  We are investigating, to the best of our ability, with limited resources.  We are also finally sounding the alarm in the American press.  Our goal is to keep this plight fresh in the minds of as many people as we can in hopes something will come of it.

To that extent, we ask you to re-post this piece in your local yachting bulletin boards. 

Lady Domina, Left

DO YOU HAVE INFORMATION ON THIS OR ANY OTHER MISSING YACHT?

DO YOU HAVE SAILING VIDEOS YOU WANT US TO PUBLISH?

SEND TO:

US

If the video is too big to send by regular email, let us know and we will send you our DROP BOX.

Meanwhile, I can tell you, I had a very difficult conversation with the father of Anders Mosteid the other day.  I sat at my computer copying and pasting a grieving fathers words into google translate, and typing my own words into a translator for a copy-post into the chat box in reply.  I say difficult because Mr. Mosteid was so like my father.  What his son Anders did, answered a want-ad for crew-wanted, hen hitched a ride on a yacht Anders knew nothing about, was so like me.  To be clear, that is not testimony about anyone else on Lady Domina or the yacht itself.  It is only to say, I empathize.

Some of the best yachting survival stories of all time are about people stranded in the vast Atlantic ocean.  In nearly every story that got written, the main character survives, often after everyone else had given up hope.  The Lady Domina may have been short on high-tech rescue equipment, it was not reported to be especially short on water or food.  When one gives up hope, what is there left?  The families of the missing sailors, in fact, the families of all sailors, deserve nothing less hope.

This youth is one of 3 Mexican fishermen who spent 281 days at sea.

Lest I forget, there is yet another missing boat.  Tore advised me of the Ora Del, missing

Ora Del Missing

Their boat was in winter storage in La Paz,Mexico in the Golfo de California from where they headed into the Pacific bound for Australia in early April this year and was last heard from by Winlink satellite email 27 April.

IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION ABOUT THE MISSING YACHTS, PLEASE:
1.  Notify authorities;
2.  Notify Tore Christiansen;
3.  Please notify us!


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