Coast Guard Ends Search for Miami Yacht

The U.S. Coast Guard on Thursday called off a weeklong air and sea search of the Caribbean for a Windjammer Barefoot Cruises yacht that disappeared with its crew of 31 during Hurricane Mitch.

Contact was lost Oct. 27 with the 282-foot Fantome, a four-masted schooner that was the flagship of Miami Beach-based Windjammer’s cruise fleet. The ship, built in 1927 for the Duke of Westminster, was nowhere to be found off the coasts of Belize, Guatemala or Honduras.

Fantome had safely dropped off its 100 passengers in Omoa, Honduras, as the storm approached, and they were flown back to Miami.

The Fantome’s last radio message said it was experiencing 115-mph winds and the ship was rolling, Windjammer officials said.

Search crews found the first piece of debris from the Fantome on Sunday, the Coast Guard said. A life raft and several life jackets were found Monday.

Though no sign of the Fantome crew was found, the Coast Guard on Thursday recovered the body of a man who drowned after his fishing boat capsized when Mitch, downgraded to a tropical storm, swept through the Gulf of Mexico.

Army divers were looking for the body of a second man still missing.

In the Florida Keys, Mitch wrecked boats and flipped mobile homes Thursday before breaking up over the Atlantic.

At least one death was blamed on the storm, that of a driver whose car slid off a highway near Fort Lauderdale during a downpour.

The storm blew across southern Florida with up to 8 inches of rain and gusts of at least 70 mph, knocking out power to much of the Keys and causing damage.