David Wickenden,Charles Andrade MISSING; – The U.S. Coast Guard has officially halted the search for two boaters who went missing off the coast of Georgia.
According to officials, a boater reported sighting a capsized 50-foot catamaran approximately 65 miles east of Brunswick, Georgia, over the weekend. The two individuals who are unaccounted for have been named as David Wickenden, aged 54, and Charles Andrade, aged 60. Rescue teams conducted extensive searches by both air and sea for more than three days in an effort to locate the missing men.
“The choice to suspend a search operation is always a challenging one and is never taken lightly,” stated Cmdr. Jason Erickson, the search and rescue mission coordinator for Coast Guard Sector Charleston. “When we deploy our rescue teams, we do so with the hope of safely bringing individuals back home.
Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the missing boaters during this profoundly difficult period.” The Coast Guard indicated that the area they searched was roughly equivalent in size to the state of Vermont.