U.S. Coast Guard crew responding to a distress call off Isle au Haut early Saturday morning scoured the ocean for more than 10 hours looking for a foundering fishing boat, but found nothing.
Officials called off the search just before 1 p.m. Saturday and classified the call as a probable hoax, said Coast Guard Chief Ilya Atamaniuk.
“It was a lot of effort and a lot of frozen coasties,” he said.
The distress call that came in at 2:22 a.m. said, “Mayday, this is Kristy Lynn hailing the Coast Guard,” according to Atamaniuk. The Coast Guard responded by sending out a Falcon jet with four crewmembers and a four-man, 47-foot motor lifeboat from the Rockland station.
“It was brutal on the ocean with the wind chill,” Atamaniuk said. The air temperature was 17 degrees at sea, and the wind was blowing at 35 knots.
One complication arose because the Coast Guard was uncertain of the correct spelling of Kristy Lynn.
“We located different Kristy Lynns and tried to track down the owners. Nothing,” Atamaniuk said.
They did speak with the owner of one Kristy Lynn, but he was safely fishing in Muscongus Bay.
“We didn’t treat it as a hoax at first,” Atamaniuk said. “We had to finally come up with some kind of category. Either they’ve sunk or it’s a possible hoax. Now, if some vessel does come in overdue named Kristy Lynn, we can reopen that case. We hope that doesn’t happen.”
On 11/22/08 at 8:56 PM,
Adelaide wrote:
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What losers!!! I will never understand why someone would do something like this. It wastes a great deal of time and money and one of these days the Coast Guard will be wasting their time on this bull and someone who really is in distress will suffer for it.
On 11/22/08 at 10:02 PM,
dandlmom wrote:
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That is rediculous!!! I cant believe someone would do something so stupid and waste everyone's time and energy!
On 11/23/08 at 11:19 AM,
Cheeky wrote:
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I'll take a wild guess, some lobsterman(s) with a grude.
On 11/23/08 at 4:17 PM,
anonymousahole wrote:
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It was probably anne_of_mdi who called this in.
On 11/24/08 at 8:29 AM,
thekingofmaine wrote:
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lol anonymousahole
On 11/24/08 at 8:35 AM,
anne_of_mdi wrote:
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ahole, your sense of humor is only average. but I won't hold a grude.
On 11/24/08 at 3:42 PM,
RocklandPhil wrote:
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Valuable time wasted. The safety of the coasties is in jeopardy. Tax dollars. Resources that would have been needed on authentic rescue operations elsewhere were tied up here. Totally disgusting. Hard times call for hard measures. If minors, and prosecuted, make the custodial parent(s) repay all expenses. If adults, they should do a prison term.
On 11/24/08 at 11:04 PM,
wspahn wrote:
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Prison term? Waste of the state's money. Just row 'em out a few miles and dump 'em out the boat. If they manage to swim back to shore, they're free to go. If not, well, hey, too bad the Coast Guard was busy answering some idiot's false alarm, wasn't it?
On 11/25/08 at 8:39 AM,
RocklandPhil wrote:
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wspahn, I was trying to be compassionate for the benefit of the libs on here. You are correct: they have no place in society, society should not support them, and also support their families while they are in the slammer. I think the word is 'termination'.
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