Sailor believed lost at sea calls, safe and sound

SOUTHWEST HARBOR – Steven Willingham, the sailor whose nonarrival in Bass Harbor sparked a 1,500-square-mile air and harbor search, called the Coast Guard on Thursday morning to say that he was safe, sound and anchored just south of Boothbay Harbor.

The sailor, 57, called Coast Guard Group Southwest Harbor about 9 a.m. Thursday to let searchers know that he and his 25-foot sailboat Exody were OK.

“He was anchored in Damariscotta Cove,” Kenneth Stuart, a civilian search and rescue controller with the Coast Guard, said Thursday. “He got in contact with a fishing boat and used their radio to get in contact with the Coast Guard.”

Willingham apparently had not known that he was the subject of a large search effort until he heard a news broadcast Thursday morning on Maine Public Radio.

He did not understand why his family had been worried about his whereabouts, according to Stuart, and said he planned to sail to Bass Harbor late next week.

Willingham left Boston on June 3 in his fiberglass sailboat, traveling solo and without an engine but with ample survival gear. The last known contact he had with anyone was a cell phone call he made June 4 to his brother when he was near Gloucester, Mass. The cell phone evidently was turned off after that.

His brother, David Willingham, called the Coast Guard on June 13 to let them know that Steven Willingham was missing. David Willingham had expected Steven Willingham to drop anchor June 6 in the village of Bass Harbor, where he would have some work done on his sailboat.

The Coast Guard mounted a search that included a C-130 plane from Elizabeth City, N.C., a Falcon jet from Air Station Cape Cod and checks of harbors and marinas between Gloucester, Mass., and Bar Harbor.

Reports of a Mayday distress call that may have been made June 9 from the Exody have not been confirmed, Coast Guard officials said Thursday. When Willingham made landfall, they planned to question him further about this possible distress call.

“We were very concerned, and our apprehensions were rising each day without locating him,” Patrick Cook, supervisor of the U.S. Coast Guard First District, said in a press release.

Coast Guard officials said that Willingham’s case is a good example of why boaters should file a float plan with the Coast Guard before getting underway and include information about their vessel and planned schedule.