Stolen Boat Didn’t Quite Get to Hawaii

A misunderstanding of geography may have prompted three Missouri youths to run a stolen fishing boat aground on Santa Cruz Island, authorities said Thursday.

The boys, two of them age 13 and one 16, had stolen a car in Missouri earlier in the week and driven it to Oxnard, according to authorities at the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department.

“They were wandering around Channel Islands Harbor and found a boat with the keys in it,” said Senior Deputy Steve Cleaves of the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department.

Cleaves said the trio stole the 41-foot Dave Starbuck, a commercial fishing vessel, before noon in an attempt to pilot it to the Channel Islands after mistaking them for the Hawaiian Islands.

But they soon ran into some problems, Cleaves said. “They got seasick and started vomiting,” he said. “They were having a terrible time.”

The youths tried to anchor the vessel at Yellowbanks Anchorage, off Santa Cruz Island’s southeastern coast, but it began drifting and ran aground in the sand near Smuggler’s Cove.

Rangers with the National Park Service reported the beached vessel about 1:45 p.m., and a crew aboard a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter spotted the youths abandoning ship shortly before 3 p.m.

The trio hid in a nearby canyon but were flushed out by Santa Barbara sheriff’s deputies about 6:30 p.m. after a brief foot chase.

“One of them told an officer he thought they actually made it to Hawaii,” Cleaves said.

After being taken into custody, the youths were flown back to the mainland via helicopter and transported to juvenile hall in Ventura County.

No one was injured during the incident.

An employee at the landing where the Dave Starbuck was stolen reported damage to the vessel as minor.