SECRET PLANS

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Coast Guard suspends search for stolen yacht in hurricane

The 'Secret Plans' of skipper Graham Collins was believed to have been stolen from the Armdale Yacht Club in the night of Sep. 9, 2021. The boat's personal locator beacon was activated in the eye of Hurricane Larry off the coast of Cape Cod on Sep 10, 630 kilometres southeast of Halifax. Officials of the U.S. Coast Guard's rescue co-ordination centre in Boston were trying to reach Collins but were unable to get hold of him, so they started contacting people on his emergency contact list. After he got off the phone with his friend, the Coast Guard call came through. The last position was transmitted far off the coast of Nova Scotia and Cape Cod on Sep 10, before the personal locator beacon's battery died. In the morning of Sep 11, the Coast Guard launched and SAR operation. Later in the day, one of the planes involved in the search spotted a flare, which was consistent with the flares from Collins’s boat, but couldn’t locate the vessel. Just after 10 a.m. on Sep 12, the Coast Guard decided to suspend the search for the boat. . Winds were 70 knots and the waves were 40 to 50 feet, with visibility for less than a mile. The yacht didn't have a liferaft, but it was fully equipped with food and water. Collins said he believed Karin Marley Simons of Antigua is the person who stole his boat and set sail for down south. Karin Marley Simons was one of two men charged after Quebec RCMP and the Canadian Coast Guard seized 556 kilograms of cocaine from a burning sailboat off the coast of Nova Scotia on Aug 29. The next day, Simons escaped police custody at Dartmouth General Hospital, where he had been taken in for an assessment. Simons has a Royal Yachting Association yachtmaster certificate, which is a highly respected qualification worldwide, proving experience and competence as a skipper.