CHANNEL ISLANDS : Brothers Rescued Off Coast After 2 Nights Adrift at Sea

Two fishermen were rescued off the Ventura County coast Thursday after spending two harrowing nights in their 15-foot motorboat, fighting to keep the tiny vessel afloat in strong winds and high seas.

Scott and Mike Laurie, brothers from Santa Ynez, had launched the boat from Gaviota Beach north of Santa Barbara on Tuesday morning. The expedition was to allow them a chance to test the engine of the 32-year-old boat that Scott Laurie bought two months ago, and perhaps catch some fish, Mike Laurie said.

They ran into problems 30 minutes after the start of their trip, just north of the Gaviota pier.

“The engine just froze up,” said Mike Laurie, 39. “We signaled to two or three commercial boats for help, but they just ignored us.”

What followed was a frustrating series of setting off each of the nine flares that they had on board, only to be ignored by other nearby boaters, Mike Laurie said.

“I couldn’t believe it. We thought we’d be rescued any time because of our flare guns. One crab boat even towed another right past us, and we thought he’d come back for us, but he didn’t.”

Meanwhile, the two kept drifting farther out to sea.

“We must have drifted 30 miles away from our starting point,” said Scott Laurie, 33. “The current was really bad. We pulled our anchor and the current shot us out to sea.”

The two ended up in the shipping channel between the Channel Islands and the coastline, waving a red flag and Mike’s orange coat at any ship that happened near them.

When the men had not returned by 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, the Coast Guard began a search, using rescue vessels and helicopters to search a 1,000-square-mile area, Petty Officer Robert Beals said.

Darkness brought high winds and 20-foot swells, Mike Laurie said.

“It was like going up an elevator,” he said. “The boat would ride the wave up to the top, and when the wave started to break, we would spiral down to the bottom. We used body weight to keep from capsizing.

“We held on because we knew it was a life-type of situation. We knew we wouldn’t last if we went into the water.”

The brothers rode out the night and tried to flag down boaters during the day. Protection from the sun came from Mike’s orange hat and a pair of tinted motorcycle goggles that Scott had. Between them, they had eight cans of soda, but no food.

The Coast Guard continued its search until 1:30 p.m. Thursday, when a merchant marine ship spotted the blue and white boat about 18 miles off the Oxnard coast, Beals said.

“It was a lucky sighting,” he said. “The seas were seven feet with whitecaps, and the little boat was almost totally invisible.”

The Lauries were towed into the Channel Islands Harbor by a Coast Guard cutter.

Thursday evening, Mike Laurie was good-natured about the experience. “All of that and we didn’t even catch some fish,” he said. “If we had, we would’ve eaten it raw.”