Fed Gov. yacht washes ashore in FL with nobody on board and it was still running.

I saw this on the news and thought it was interesting.

A yacht, still running with the lights on, washed ashore near Madeira Beach, FL on Wednesday around 1pm. There was nobody on it and they stopped the search last night. The interesting part they said was that the boat is registered to the Federal Government.

So does the Federal Govt lose boats often and the people or person on it?

I'm not saying this is a conspiracy I just thought it was interesting.

Yacht Washes Ashore

Cool find. So many possibilities

My guesses:

Alien Abduction

One really bad drunken party

Invisibility cloaking device with the wires reversed

Bermuda triangle?

Merpeople kidnapping.

The fish want revenge for the BP disaster.


Honest reason, bad luck. A storm or a rogue wave caught them swept them off board. If the ship survives there's a good chance it'll keep running.

Quite a strange case, without more details to go on. If it washed ashore with its lights on maybe it was used by a team of divers that it somehow got away from. The imagination can run wild with this one.

Surely there must have been people going aboard to check if anyone needed help as soon as it beached?

They must then be able to comment on the nature of this boat and any clues as to what happened. Odd that there was no attempt to speak with any eyewitnesses or people that have checked the boat out.

Still, very curious.

Someone takes the boat out solo and falls overboard. It happens. A good reason to not go out alone.

At 48 feet it is no small craft. I would have to assume that someone was on this alone and fell overboard. The odds of more than one crew member falling overboard at the same time are rare on a powerboat. Even so, the hazards on power boat are far less that a sailboat. So, this is certainly odd.

The story is developing. No mention of Govt. registry though

The yacht, called Makin Waves, was most recently registered in Delaware. A Mexican flag is fixed on the bow, but an American flag flies at the stern.

Investigators found a previous owner, but say the ship probably wasn't registered after the sale and may have changed hands again.

Read more: www.miamiherald.com...

According to the article it is this model Sea Ray
www.searay.com...

At least they, the government, still retains the asset. People are expendable and replaceable but a good yacht isn't.

reply to post by Phage


Agreed!

reply to post by jibeho


Interesting. It said on the site I linked to that it was registered to the government.

Yeah it wasn't small, they showed it on the news. Nice boat.

Originally posted by Tarrok
Surely there must have been people going aboard to check if anyone needed help as soon as it beached?

They must then be able to comment on the nature of this boat and any clues as to what happened. Odd that there was no attempt to speak with any eyewitnesses or people that have checked the boat out.

Still, very curious.

They said nobody was on it when it washed ashore.

Yeah still interesting.
I guess whoever was on board fell off.

here is some video footage. This could have been a drug seizure asset.

www.wgal.com...

Perhaps a CIA meeting with the drug cartel went bad. A 48 foot yacht is not something you would generally take out by yourself. When you leave or even come in to port you need others to help secure you lines. I know this because I have owned 5 boats in my lifetime, ranging from 18' to 40'. the 40' was next to impossible to take out by yourself.

reply to post by CaptGizmo


Plenty of Yacht Clubs with dock hands in Florida. I spent a summer as one in Ft. Lauderdale One of my tasks was casting off outgoing vessels and mooring incoming ones.

reply to post by CaptGizmo


The majority of the comments i have read on various blogs or posts in regards to this says the same thing, something to possibly do with drugs. It wouldn't surprise me. This kind of stuff is scarily quite common off the coasts of Florida.

Why wouldn't it be reported stolen or lost? Also why is one article saying it was registered to the Federal Government yet the Pinellas County Sheriff's Dept is still trying to locate the owner. Didn't they say it was registered to the govt? So why continue to look for an owner?

I know nothing about boat ownership which is why I ask.

48 ft yacht! Up and running, and registered. Why can't I just happen to "find" a 48 ft yacht that nobody has reported missing!! I'd be happy to find an 8 foot row boat for my pond.

This is probably going to turn out to be a sad story. Pirates, Domestic Violence, Drug Deal, Kidnapping, Lost Divers, no telling how many ways this could turn out sadly.

My guess is that the boat was being used by the DEA for an undercover operation and something went wrong.

www2.tbo.com...
^ judging from the above picture it looks pretty hard for a wave to have knocked the persons manning the boat overboard. The cockpit area looks pretty well concealed from the elements.

reply to post by mblahnikluver


I suspect that "regsitered to the federal government" is a bit of a misstatement. Large boats are often "registered" with the Coast Guard, or perhaps "certified" is a better term. That doesn't mean the Federal Government owns the boat. It just has federal papers, if you will.

More likely joyriders who didn't want to bother returning the boat after partying the night on it. A lot of boats/yachts that are stolen aren't missed until they wash up on shore somewhere.

Some news sources are saying that the boat was previously registered in Delaware but that later expired. Im going to change me guess to the boat being involved with drug smuggling ... that sort of stuff is very common along the Gulf coasts of Florida and Texas.

The boat was also flying a Mexican flag indicated that it may have come from Mexico.

After watching far too many episodes of Miami Vice in my lifetime, I would agree with the others that it has something to do with drugs. Perhaps some drug sting went terribly wrong or agents were kidnapped or killed by a drug cartel.

Now where are my white pants and Phil Collins cassettes.

[edit on 26-8-2010 by Kaploink]