A “ghost ship” that recently washed up on a Florida Panhandle beach was traced to a Texas man who’ll likely lose much of his life savings after purchasing the vessel he had hoped to sail around the world.
Francine Farrar couldn’t believe her eyes early on the evening of June 18 when a 45-foot sailboat with no one aboard eerily floated toward her family’s beach rental in Pensacola.
“I saw this tattered sailboat, it looked ghostly, just kind of coming in,” Farrar, a 46-year-old Meridian, Mississippi, homemaker, told NBC News last week.
The craft washed ashore and the strange sight of a sailboat on the sand quickly became a source of neighborhood fascination, said 35-year-old Pensacola resident Allie Garrett.
“We called it the ‘ghost ship.’ It quickly became known as the ‘ghost ship’ across Pensacola beach,” said Garrett, a meteorologist and storm chaser who took multiple photos and drone footage of the prone vessel.
Wayward boats are common during Florida hurricane season as vessels succumb to high winds and get taken off their moorings.
“We just thought this sailboat broke loose from the marina, that someone didn’t tie it down well enough,” Farrar said.
But this beached ship turned out to have a far more complicated journey to where it now sits in Pensacola.
Shortly after locals posted images of the craft on social media, those pictures gained the attention of 39-year-old Michael Barlow, whose life was saved weeks earlier during a harrowing Coast Guard rescue in the Gulf of Mexico.
Barlow immediately recognized the images and video to be The Lady Catherine III, which he purchased in Fort Pierce, Florida, in May.
“I knew it was her,” Barlow said.
The Catherine pushed off from Fort Pierce on May 21, Barlow said, with plans to dock in Rockport, Texas, where he was closing down an excavation business and selling off belongings to start a new wandering life.
“We were just going to explore the world,” Barlow said of his wife and 9-year-old son. “We’re normal people. We have normal finances, very, very basic. And this is the only way I could take my son and show him there’s a whole world out there, beyond what’s in America. It’s the only way to do this realistically until this happened.”
Barlow and a friend were headed back to Texas when high winds and massive waves that would eventually become Hurricane Alberto lashed the Catherine and rendered it inoperable.
“We went through storms one after another, after another, after another, and then that last storm just hit us and exploded my front headsails,” Barlow said in an interview from Honduras, where he’s temporarily living and teaching scuba. “We lost our headsail, we lost our motor, and we were getting turned. It was unforecast and it was devastating.”
He added: “The seas were the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve been on the water my entire life, worked on offshore fishing boats, and I’ve seen some gnarly seas. But this was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
A Garmin satellite communication device was one of the few electric or gas-powered tools not destroyed by crashing seawater, and Barlow was able to get word to authorities on shore that he was stuck in dangerous waters.
“We were fine right now, but we have no control of the boat and it’s getting worse,” Barlow said, recalling his message to the Coast Guard. “We starting to get turned sideways. The waves were rolling the boat. There was not much we could do.”
The Coast Guard in New Orleans said it was alerted to two boaters whose “vessel became disabled approximately 190 miles south of Panama City” on June 1.
A Coast Guard helicopter and surveillance plane found Barlow and his friend on the Catherine, officials said, but a boat-to-boat rescue was out of the question in those unstable waters.
“‘We can come get you right now, but you have to leave the vessel,’” said Barlow, recalling the choice Coast Guard rescuers gave him. “‘You’re definitely rolling the dice on your life if you stay.’ It was just a bad situation and it was getting progressively worse.”
Barlow picked a rescue over the boat he purchased for $80,000.
“The aircrews arrived on scene, the helicopter aircrew hoisted the two persons aboard and transported them to Panama City Airport in Panama City, Florida,” a Cost Guard statement said.
Barlow said he was reasonably confident the Catherine would show up again, and it did, 17 days later and nearly 200 miles away.
“We did our best to leave her in the best condition to make it through the storm,” Barlow said. “We lashed everything down and we hoped she could ride it out.”
Now, the sailor has nothing but bad choices ahead of him.
He could pay $20,000 to have the Catherine taken to dry dock for repairs that could very well total more than its pre-Alberto value.
Or he could shell out about $28,000 to simply have the vessel taken away and demolished, which would at least stop the financial hemorrhage.
“If we’re talking about business numbers, it’d make more sense to scrap the boat,” Barlow said. “That’s just the stone-cold truth.”
He’s now in talks with state and local officials in hopes of finding a solution in coming weeks.
As the owner of a “derelict vessel,” Barlow has to move it away or possibly face a third-degree felony, punishable by a fine of up to $5,000 and even prison time, officials said.
“Yes, our officers have been in contact with Mr. Barlow,” Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesperson Faith Fawn said in statement. “He has 30 days from the date the uniform boating citation was issued to bring his vessel into compliance.”
Barlow said he’s not giving up on his world-sailing dreams even if this Catherine misadventure costs him so much of his life savings.
“I said I can make another 80,000 bucks and we can carry on with life and try again or we can sit around here and try to be tough guys and really lose it all,” Barlow said of his final moments on the water aboard the Catherine.
“This definitely did not shake my resolve as far as sailing goes. I love the ocean. I respect the ocean. It’s relentless and beautiful at the same time.”