Man’s Body Found Near Abandoned Boat off Santa Barbara Coast
Search for Sailor Initiated Early Sunday After Sailboat Found Unmanned South of Leadbetter Point
A combined search party executed by the Santa Barbara Harbor Patrol and U.S. Coast Guard located the body of a dead man early Sunday morning floating a few miles away from his sailboat, the Escapade — registered to an owner in Los Angeles — which was anchored about a mile south of Leadbetter Point.
Even with a near full moon, the pre-dawn morning was dark, and the sea was vast. “It was definitely a needle-in-the-haystack situation,” said Nathan Alldredge, patrol supervisor for Harbor Patrol.
The Harbor Patrol had been alerted that there was an apparently unmanned vessel off the coast with its sails full. The boat was searched after several efforts to rouse any possible occupants went for naught. Alldredge declined to release the decedent’s name pending notification of next of kin by the county coroner’s office.
There was no immediate evidence of violence or foul play, he said. Alldredge said such deaths are rare, but cautioned that being on the ocean can be a dangerous place, especially at night and particularly in the late-fall and winter months when the chop is up.
