A missing sailor was luckily found alive, 86 miles off the Florida coast, after clinging to the bow of his sinking boat for almost two days.
Watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector Jacksonville sent a search-and-rescue team to find Bee, including a Hercules C-130 aircraft from Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater, but to no avail. An Enhanced Group Calling was issued to mariners located in the vicinity of the search area of the possibility of a lone sailor in distress.
The errant sailor was then eventually spotted by the crew of a 225-meter container ship, named Angeles.
Merchant mariner Lacruiser P. Relativo, on board the Angeles, gave Bee his “lucky shirt,” and after a hot meal took a photo with the boater for posterity.
Relativo regaled being woken up by an urgent call to rescue someone that day. “As merchant mariners, we were trained to the toughest degree of distress that can possibly happen at sea,” he explained. “However, the actual scene [is] often different.”
Bee, he recalled, asked what day it was before anything else. “By the look on his face, I saw his teary eyes as he made sign of the cross,” said Relativo. “He was drifting in the open sea for days, maintaining his stance at the top of his capsized boat.”
Any movement, Bee deduced, may have triggered his vessel to sink below the waves.
It was later discovered that “Stingray” had suffered a mechanical failure sometime on Nov. 28. Shortly after midnight, Bee was woken by the force of the water rushing into the forward cabin, pushing him out of the front hatch and onto the bow to cling on for his dear life.
Lieutenant Shawn Antonelli, USCG District 7’s command duty officer, claimed that the chances of finding Bee alive were slim. “But he was able to stay with his boat,” he marveled, “which helped save his life.”
