The boat of missing Maryland sailor Donald Larson has been found
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The Mexican navy said the crew of one of its surface vessels, operating in the Pacific late Thursday, found the capsized boat of missing Baltimore sailor Donald Lawson, two nights after searchers in a military plane spotted an overturned boat that appeared to be Lawson’s craft. Fast, informative and written just for locals. Get The 7 DMV newsletter in your inbox every weekday morning. ArrowRight Authorities said Lawson, 41, has not been found.
The announcement that the crew of a long-range navy patrol boat, searching 356 nautical miles southwest of Acapulco, Mexico, located the 60-foot, tri-hulled sailing craft eased confusion this week about whether Lawson’s trimaran had been recovered.
A spokesman for Lawson’s wife, Jacqueline Lawson, said Wednesday that the sailboat, named Defiant, had been found and that Jacqueline Lawson had identified it in a photo sent to her by authorities. But the Mexican navy contradicted that statement, saying that after an aircrew spotted a capsized boat Tuesday night that resembled Lawson’s, surface vessels had been unable to find it in foul weather.
It is unclear whether the photo sent to Jacqueline Lawson had been taken Tuesday evening from the plane, before the crew of the patrol vessel located the stricken sailboat Thursday. The boat was found about 8 p.m. Pacific time, according to a Mexican navy spokesman, Capt. Edbert Sanchez Mijangos, who said navy divers looked for Lawson in the area but did not find him.
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“The search continues,” Sanchez Mijangos said.
Jacqueline Lawson said her husband set sail from Acapulco on July 5, bound for Baltimore, and that she had been communicating with him electronically from their Maryland home. She said she was last in contact with him July 13, when he told her that Defiant had lost engine and electrical power in a storm south of Acapulco.
Donald Lawson, an experienced ocean sailor, is chairman of the diversity, equity and inclusion committee of U.S. Sailing, the national governing body for the sport, and founder of the nonprofit Dark Seas Project, which seeks to promote recreational sailing among African Americans and other minorities.
correction An earlier version of this story misspelled Donald Lawson's name in the photo caption and last paragraph. This version has been corrected.
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Source: The Washington Post
