8 months ago
Click here to watch live briefings and newscasts today.
With the Coast Guard's search for three missing men over, two other groups are heading into the Gulf on Wednesday with very different missions.
At sundown Tuesday, the last government efforts to find Marquis Cooper, Corey Smith, and Will Bleakley came to an end. "If there were survivors, they would have been found," said Coast Guard Captain Timothy Close, who directed more than 60 hours of search efforts.
In the hours after sunrise Wednesday, state officers are setting a course for the group's overturned fishing boat. It remains adrift around 40 miles offshore, but is marked by a locator strobe, Close said.
A boat from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will lead a salvage crew in another boat out to the site. They'll work to right the boat and tow it to shore.
The retrieval mission has two goals: removing a floating hazard from the Gulf of Mexico and bringing the boat to investigators, who can use it as they piece together their report on the accident at sea. FWC is in charge of investigating boating mishaps in Florida's waters.
Friends of Marquis Cooper are organizing their own private search effort, which is set to get underway Wednesday. Click here for more details on their efforts, including a call for experienced mariners and pilots.
Update following Tuesday afternoon briefing:
"If there were survivors, they would have been found, " said the Coast Guard's search supervisor Captain Timothy Close. Close told us at a 4 p.m. press conference that the search for missing players will end at sundown Tuesday.
Close said that the Coast Guard performed 50 search missions and spent 230 hours on the scene, crawling 24,000 square miles of ocean. He said that today marked 60 hours since the Coast Guard received a phone call reporting a boat was overdue. It is believed the boat capized eight hours before that.
Close announced that at 6:30 p.m., the Coast Guard would suspend "all active search efforts in place."
Close also urged caution to any amateur search efforts, saying that the scene is "a long ways off shore, and that boats are out of coverage. We do not want to have to initiate any other search efforts."
This will be the last scheduled briefing from the Coast Guard, and when asked how the families reacted today, he said they "were fairly upset with the whole circumstance."
Close offered no update on the medical condition of Nick Schulyer. He also said they found a life jacket and a cooler about 16 miles from the boat that they believe came from the boat.
Update after midday Tuesday briefing:
Earlier today, Tampa General Hospital upgraded rescued boater Nick Schuyler's condition to "fair."
Crews had immeasurably better weather today, searching in 1 to 3 foot seas, with winds at around 10-15 miles an hour.
The boat was anchored Saturday afternoon, and when the four men onboard tried to raise that anchor as the weather worsened, it flipped at around 5 p.m.
The men were not wearing life vests when the boat capsized. They swam underneath the overturned boat, pulled out four life jackets, and all put them on.
Capt. Close remarked earlier today how every search is different and there is no established protocol on how long they should continue, and that any decision to call it off would be made by him and his supervisor in Miami.
The search was perfrormed with primarily Coast Guard craft, one fixed-wing C-130 jet in the air, along with an HH-60 Jayhawk helicopter. Three cutters were on the scene, the Crocodile, Nantucket, and Tornado.
The search has covered around 20,000 square miles so far, but is now focused on about 4,000 square miles. That search area has crept south, following the current in the Gulf, which is moving southward at around 1 mile per hour.
The initial interview with rescued boater Nick Schuyler revealed helpful details that have allowed the Coast Guard to refine its search.
Members of the Coast Guard and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission are planning a follow-up interview with Schuyler as his condition improves Tuesday.
The group's boat is still adrift. The Coast Guard marked it with a locator strobe, and Florida Fish and Wildlife may plan to retrieve it as part of their accident investigation, Close said.
Our previous update, filed at daybreak Tuesday:
As dawn broke over the Gulf, the Coast Guard said its crews had not had success overnight in the search for three missing boaters, lost since their fishing boat capsized Saturday night.
Despite the men's worsening odds in the face of hypothermia, Capt. Timothy Close, who oversees the search, said on Monday afternoon that there was no plan to call off the effort.
The three men who remain missing are former Tampa Bay Buccaneers players Marquis Cooper and Corey Smith, along with former USF player Will Bleakley.
One of the boaters was miraculously rescued just after noon Monday.
Former USF football player Nick Schuyler was found clinging to the group's overturned boat, located about 39 miles west of Egmont Key and the mouth of Tampa Bay.
Schuyler is currently at Tampa General Hospital listed in serious condition.
Nick told the Coast Guard that the boat was anchored before it flipped over. His father later confirmed that Nick last saw his three friends hours after it flipped, when they couldn't hold on to the hull any longer. The three men were wearing life vests.
Before locating Schuyler and the boat, the U.S. Coast Guard said it had searched 16,000 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico. Now search crews say the search for the remaining three men has been concentrated to a 2,000 square mile area closer to where the boat was last located.
Click here to see the Photo Gallery of his arrival to Tampa General Hospital.
Click here to see the Coast Guard video of Nick's rescue.
The commander of the Coast Guard's St. Petersburg Sector says his team has no reason to stop searching, so they intend to continue their efforts into the evening.
"There is no reason to stop at this point," Capt. Timothy Close said. "We're not gonna speculate as to the condition of the guys but, as long as we can, we're gonna be out there searching."
The area of ocean covered so far -- 16,000 square miles -- is equivalent to about 1/3 of the land area in Florida.
High seas and biting winds that had battled search crews much of Sunday and Monday have now backed down a bit. Seas were swelling to 14 feet Sunday night, but have now dropped to 7-9 feet, Close said.
"Winds that were creating white caps out in the Gulf have also died down somewhat," said Close. "That means there's fewer white caps to deal with and it's gonna make it a little bit easier to see anything that's out there floating."
When winds kick up white caps on the water, the small waves can deceive search crews and make it even harder to spot distant objects.
Click here to read a discussion about how officials determine when to call off a water rescue.
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