Family abandons ocean search for missing fishermen after six weeks

Six weeks after three fishermen set off on a trip, there is no sign of them or their boat

The families of three fishermen who vanished off the coast of Georgia six weeks ago have now made the difficult decision to call off a private search.

Dalton Conway, 24, Caleb Wilkinson, 26, and Tyler Barlow 24, went missing last month after setting off on a fishing trip on the boat the “Carol Ann”. The group was supposed to return to shore on 19 October but never made it back.

Chris Barlow, Tyler’s father, announced on Facebook this week that – after a month and a half – the families have now called off their private search for their loved ones.

“It is with great sadness that we are informing everyone that the helicopter that landed at 4:38 P.M. today will be our last flight unless we receive new information,” Mr Barlow wrote.

“We are suspending our active search effort as we have exhausted every lead we currently have,” he added.

The three men had hired the fishing boat together in Brunswick, Georgia, setting sail on 14 October.

They planned to return around five days later, but didn’t show up.

Tyler Barlow, Caleb Wilkinson and Dalton Conway (Chris Barlow/Facebook)

No mayday call was sent from the vessel; while the Carol Ann did have an emergency position-indicating radio beacon on board, it had to be manually activated to work.

The Coast Guard spent six days trying to search for the boat over 96,000 square miles of water, even trying to contact the ship using VHF-FM marine radio.

Eventually, the Coast Guard called off its search, prompting the families of the missing men to raise money to pay for their own private search.

Together, the desperate families enlisted the help of planes and helicopters – as well as the nonprofit volunteer search and rescue organisation United Cajun Navy, to try and spot the vessel from the air.

Throughout the search, the rescue teams came across numerous boat wreckages and debris – but no sign of the Carol Ann.

There had been a brief glimmer of hope on 19 November – over a month after the boat went missing – when the United Cajun Navy found a fish box and buoy balls thought to be from the missing vessel 16 miles off the coast of St Augustine, Florida.

The Coast Guard was informed of the discovery and reportedly went out to investigate; however, the rest of the boat and its equipment were never found.

The Carol Ann has now been missing for six weeks (Dalton Conway/Facebook)

Mr Barlow thanked his friends and local community for helping in the search for the missing men and asked people to keep on the lookout when they are on the beach or boating to “help us put the remaining pieces of this horrific puzzle together”.

“The last time I saw Tyler I never imagined that it could possibly be the last time I would see him; instead of handing him my personal locator beacon and telling him to be safe, I would have begged him not to go,” he said.

Stevie Conway, the sister of Dalton Conway and the girlfriend of Caleb Wilkinson, is four months’ pregnant with Mr Wilkinson’s child and is holding onto hopes that he returns home to meet his baby.

“I’m so blessed and thankful to be carrying our sweet baby as an extension of you,” she wrote in a heartfelt tribute on Facebook, after the search was called off.

The families will continue to raise awareness on social media through the hashtag “#wontstop” – and now plan to push for legislative changes to prevent something like this happening again.