UPDATE: According to the U.S. Coast Guard, the search for four people missing is ongoing Tuesday. Crews searched 60 miles west of Monterey overnight and had no luck of finding debris, people or anything that showed signs of an abandoned ship. The Coast Guard met at 8 am Tuesday to reassess the search plans.
As of 9:10 am, the search is still ongoing, however no records match the name of the vessel and there have been no reports of missing people.
The Coast Guard will meet again Tuesday morning once the aircrafts complete a thorough search of the area.
MONTEREY, Calif.- "Coast Guard, Coast Guard we are abandoning ship. This is the Charm Blow, we are abandoning ship," said one family member on a distressed boat on Sunday afternoon.
Authorities are still trying to identify the man's voice behind this distress call. Four family members abandoned their sailboat nearly 36 hours ago, when it started taking on water more than 60 miles off the Central Coast.
Now CBS San Francisco is asking the Coast Guard a very serious question: Is it possible the distress call was a prank?
"We have no sign of debris, we have no sign of distress, except for the original distress call, which is compelling evidence enough for us to continue searching," said a San Francisco U.S. Coast Guard officer.
The officer also said there has been no sign of anybody in the water. Still, if a report is suspected to be a hoax, they will fully investigate and search the waters, until they get evidence otherwise.
We want to walk you through a rough timeline of events since the search began. It started on Sunday afternoon at 4:20pm, off the coast of Pillar Point near Half Moon Bay, that's north of Santa Cruz. The family sent the distress call saying their boat was sinking. An hour later, the group said they had to jump ship, without any life raft. The Coast Guard and crews from the California Air National Guard took their search 55 miles southwest of Santa Cruz. They believe the boat may have been drifting down the coast, leaving the possibilities wide open.
A search this vast takes a lot of personnel and a lot of money. The Coast Guard said it's hard to calculate just how much a search like this costs. Officers said searching by air and sea around the clock, adds up quickly.
Officers said when a distress call comes in, they use as many tools as possible to safely bring back anyone stuck out at sea.
"Right now when we have a vessel out there that's missing we don't really worry about what our budget is, we're just going to send our assets out there. We're trying to obviously search smarter and get the most bang for our dollars as the taxpayers would expect us to," said Lt. Commander Ron Kooper.
The Coast Guard is rotating 4 cutters, a life boat, two 6-wing planes and several helicopters at a time. The Air National Guard and the Navy are also helping out with the search. The Coast Guard said just one cutter can hold up to twelve officers at a time and the number of people involved in the search is a lot more than that.
"We have a set area that we're searching for and try and get as many eyes out there looking back and forth for the subject vessel or individuals as soon as possible," Lt. Comm. Kooper said.
Without a GPS signal, it's nearly impossible for officers to know where to look for the missing family. But the family did have one radio on the boat, which gave the Coast Guard a starting point. Technology allows rescue teams to set up a general search pattern, similar to a compass. Officers said they will go through the same pattern several times depending on the amount of sunlight. But it's a very large area to search and takes hours to go through the pattern each time.
The Coast Guard said there's still a reasonable expectation that this family will be found. They will search through the night and re-evaluate the search plan at about 8:00am Tuesday morning. Officers said a missing persons report hasn't been filed because no one has called the Coast Guard to report anyone missing yet.
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UPDATE: Crews are still looking for the missing boaters. They were approximately 65 miles off the coast of Pillar Point, Calif., when they radioed Coast Guard. Crews believe that they may have been carried down to Southwest of the Santa Cruz area.
At this time the Coast Guard does not have a lot of information about the missing boat. The Coast Guard has released part of the mayday call in hopes that someone will recognize the voice. Please contact Coast Guard Sector San Francisco immediately at 415-399-3547 if you have any information.
Click here to listen to the audio on your computer, Click here to listen to it on Facebook.
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NEAR MONTEREY BAY, Calif. -- Authorities are searching for two adults and two young children missing off the coast of Monterey Bay after their 29-foot sailboat took on water, the Coast Guard said early Monday morning.
According to the Coast Guard, they think the boat, possibly called Charmblow, sank about 60 to 65 miles Southwest of Santa Cruz. Officials got a call at about 4:20 Sunday afternoon that the boat was taking on water and its electronics were failing. About an hour later, officials said the passengers were abandoning ship when the Coast Guard lost radio communication with them.
"Upon receiving the notification from the vessel, Coast Guard Sector San Francisco issued an Urgent Marine Information Broadcast and launched multiple rescue assets," said Coast Guard officials in a news release.
Authorities said four people were on board, a husband and wife, their four-year old son and a juvenile cousin who's age has not been confirmed. The Coast Guard said the occupants did not have survival equipment, and that they were trying to make a raft out of a cooler and life ring.
Several agencies are assisting in the search for the four passengers, including the California International Guard.
According to the Coast Guard, another large cutter will be arriving Monday morning from Port Angeles, Washington, to aid in the search.
