A “ghost ship” abandoned at sea washed up on a Florida beach just one week later. Here’s the full story of Lady Catherine III, the 45-foot sailboat that washed ashore earlier this week on Pensacola Beach.
Michael Barlow originally pursued an 884-mile journey from Fort Pierce, Florida to Texas. Along with his friend, he took the ship Lady Catherine III across the Gulf of Mexico in early June.
“I was going to go teach in Honduras. I teach scuba diving,” Barlow told WEAR News. “When the season was over, I was gonna come back. My family and I were gonna move on board and take off after hurricane season.”
“The forecast was beautiful,” Barlow added. “We had 15 to 20 knots on our backs all the way home to Texas.”
However, as we all know, the weather can be quite unpredictable at times. Just a week into their trip, they faced strong and relentless wings.
“The seas started building, wind hit us and it was 30 to 40 knots,” Barlow said. “It pretty much stayed that way for the next two days.”
“When it started getting crazy, I knew the boat could handle it and we just sent it,” he continued.
According to Barlow, the autopilot broke early on in the storm, and he and his friend were forced to steer for three days. Eventually, his friend began experiencing symptoms of hypothermia, going unconscious.
“I’m sitting there and watching these seas build, so I started hammering on the radio going through the procedures just seeing if there was someone within reach that could help us,” he explained.
“No one was responding. I went through ‘pon pon pon pon, mayday mayday!’ — and no response.”
‘Ghost Ship’ Washes Ashore on Florida Beach
Thankfully, after some thought, Barlow decided that the situation was bad enough to request help from the Coast Guard via SOS.
“They told me they were looking at the radar and said, ‘You are fixing to get slammed again. We can come get you right now. But we are three hours away and you have to leave your vessel,'” Barlow said. “I said to come get us.”
Soon after, rescue swimmer Richard Hoefle arrived in a helicopter after dodging storms along the Gulf.
“When we showed up, the boat was just battered,” Hoefle told WEAR News. “It was moving back and forth in the waves. I was getting seasick from the helicopter just looking at these guys.”
“Looking at the pictures of the boat, she survived,” Barlow said. “She got damaged of course.”
Eventually, Francine Farrar was the first individual to watch the boat wash ashore at Pensacola Beach. After some research, she found Barlow on social media and stayed with the boat until he could arrive.
“I’ve been talking to him all day trying to help him out,” Farrar said. “People have been stealing stuff off the boat.”
However, by the time he got there, Barlow noted that all his belongings were gone. Though devastating, he was just grateful to be alive and home.
“I’ve got a 9-year-old son and a beautiful wife,” Barlow said. “We had plans to go sail and travel and we worked real hard to get here, so I was gonna come home.”
To help salvage what’s left of the sailboat, Barlow has launched a GoFundMe campaign.