SIGHTINGS out on the water
BOTH PHOTOS LATITUDE / ANDY
As reported last month in Cruise Notes, the San Diego-based Hylas 42 Entertainer went aground on a remote atoll in the Tuamotus archipelago of French Polynesia in mid-July. Her sole crewman, Louis V. Schooler, 64, was reported to have died aboard. But as details of the incident have emerged, many questions remain unanswered. After Schooler completed his 3,500-mile singlehanded crossing from San Diego to the Marquesas, he met several cruisers, one of whom described him as "a kind and gentle man." But despite his pleasant demeanor, Schooler had a shockingly devious history. In 2012 he was charged by the US Securities and Exchange Commission with committing securities fraud related to real-estate scams, and early this year he was ordered by a federal court to forfeit almost $150 million to defrauded investors. He took off aboard Entertainer without paying that eye-popping sum. More than a few details of Schooler's death remain curious, if not downright suspicious: According to sources in the South Pacific HF radio community, on July 5 Taupo Maritime Radio in Wellington, NZ, received an automated distress call from Entertainer's DSC-enabled HF radio, giving a lat-long position 'Entertainer' was a fine-looking yacht, and of 12.35°S, 144.40°W, with the Schooler was apparently a competent sailor, as he sailed her 3,500 miles alone. notation "vessel aground." Those two bits of info were contradictory, however, as that lat-long position is roughly two-thirds of the way from Nuku Hiva, in the Marquesas, to the northern Tuamotus. The distress call was relayed to French Polynesia's search and rescue organization, MRCC Papeete, whose staff dispatched a fixed-wing aircraft (probably a French navy jet) to investigate. The flight crew reported spotting the vessel under sail (we presume at the noted latlong), but they were not able to make radio contact. They did observe that the vessel changed course and switched off one of her navigation lights. No further SAR action was initiated at that time. When a friend of Schooler's contacted the Pacific Seafarer's Net four days later (July 10) to request further assistance in locating Entertainer, it was learned that Schooler had called his wife Linda via satphone on July 5 — the same day as the DSC distress message — telling her he had hurt his back and was feeling unwell. The aid request by Schooler's friend was relayed to MRCC Papeete, whose assets located Entertainer the next day — we're told, via an Iridium satphone signal — aground on Takapoto Atoll. It is our understanding that a police (gendarmes) helicopter was sent to the scene, but due to poor weather conditions did not land or winch down rescue personnel. However, the crew did observe a "dead body" in the cockpit, which the Papeete newspaper La Dépêche reported to have been "in a state of advanced decomposition." When the gendarmes returned the next day to retrieve the body for an autopsy, however, it was gone and has never been found. This leaves some who are familiar with Schooler's deceitful ways to wonder if he'd engineered an elaborate plot to fake his own death, or if his karma had simply caught up with him. Another burning question, of course, is where is that $150 mil? — andy September, 2016 •
Latitude 38
DYLAN HUBER / SANGVIND
tragic death or karmic payback?
Richmond YC and the Alameda Community Sailing Center. Getting your kids into sailing can offer unanticipated benefits to parents and kids alike. Not only will your kids be subtly bonding with nature as they harness the wind, but skippering their own tiny craft can bring many character-building rewards: getting physical exercise, problem-solving, decision-making, and taking personal responsibility. Not to mention, hours spent on the water will likely be the highlight of their week — and you'll get credit for suggesting it. Imagine your own kid in the photos below. In the spread, a new breed of sailors takes to the water via the Sailing Education Adventures organization. The inset shows young Opti sailors heading out into Raccoon Strait from San Francisco YC. — andy
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