Five men would set out from the scenic Hawaiianisland of Maui on the morning of Sunday February

11th, 1979 in a 17-foot Boston Whaler – theSarah Joe – for a day of leisurely fishing. Clear skies and
peaceful waters awaited themoff the coast, and there was every indication that it would be a relaxing
Sunday for thesailors. By mid-day, however, wind picked up and thewaters became turbulent; a storm
was brewing on the Pacific and the Sarah Joe was trappedright in the middle of it all. By nightfall, family
and friends on the islandwere fraught with worry for the men on board, and despite rescue attempts
being made byauthorities, the vessel could not be reached or located. Over the following days, search
parties coveredsome 70,000 square miles of ocean, desperately attempting to locate the five men, but
ultimatelycould find no trace of the vessel nor its crew. After weeks of searching, all involved hadno
choice but to conclude that the Sarah Joe had likely sunk during the storm, claimingthe lives of all five of
its crew. The whereabouts of the wrecked Sarah Joe remaineda mystery that investigators were unable
to solve, until a shocking discovery was madenearly a decade later that left investigators and relatives
with more questions than answers. The five men who set sail that fateful Februaryday were Scott
Moorman, Peter Hanchett, Patrick Woesner, Benjamin Kalama, Ralph Malaiakini. They ranged in age
between late twenties andlate thirties and there was plenty of seafaring experience among them, with
27-year old RalphMalaiakini even making his living as a professional fisherman. The men knew each
other through constructionwork and had been friends for years. On the morning of February 11th, Ralph
borrowedthe Sarah Joe from his brother. The group then headed to the nearby villageof Hana, from
which the Sarah Joe would depart. None of them had bothered to check weatherforecasts, choosing to
rely on the clear, blue skies and almost-still waters as theirguide, watching the horizon for any
indications of change. This wasn’t out of the ordinary for sailorswho anticipated being in the open ocean
for no more than a few hours. It seemed highly unlikely that any sort oftrouble would await them on
their short outing, let alone what would come to be the worstregional storm in nearly 50 years. Spirits
were high as the men boarded the SarahJoe, bringing with them light snacks and refreshments – enough
to last a day of fishing. The crew set sail into the Alenuihaha Channelshortly after 10AM. All seemed well
in the Channel that day untilaround 1PM, when gale winds began to pelt the coastline and torrential rain
began tofall. Family members of the five men grew ever moreconcerned by the massive storm that was
headed for the Channel. Peter’s father, John Hanchett Sr. rushedto the shoreline, attempting to spot the
Sarah Joe from land. There was no sign of the small vessel, andthe storm was only getting worse. Soon,
visibility was too poor for anythingof value to be gleaned observing from the island. Large ships began to
dock at nearby Hana,managing to escape the clutches of the storm, but the Sarah Joe was not among
them. In the early evening hours, radio distresscalls from the Sarah Joe reached the island. The sailors
reported that they were experiencingengine trouble, effectively trapping them far from shore. Repeated
attempts over the following hoursto contact the Sarah Joe proved futile. Desperate to locate and rescue
those aboard,family members and friends of the men set out in larger boats, searching for any signof
the missing vessel. Low visibility and choppy waters made searchingextremely difficult, and by nightfall,
the ships were forced to return to the island. The Coast Guard was notified shortly thereafter,and
authorities deployed all possible resources the following morning to search for the SarahJoe. The search
was aided by the Coast Guard, MarineCorps, and Civil Air Patrol, alongside privately-owned planes,
boats, and three Navy-trained spotterpigeons, used for the first time in an actual search operation.
Despite the overhauled efforts, all involvedhad to come to terms with a grim reality: it would have taken
a miracle for the SarahJoe and its crew to have survived the ferocity of the storm. After five days of
searching, authoritieshad no choice but to call off their search, with experts concluding that the Sarah
Joehad wrecked during the storm, leaving no survivors. Locals refused to give up hope, however,
poolingtheir resources to fund their own search party. They covered huge swaths of the
AlenuihahaChannel and the surrounding areas, even going as far as to search small, nearby islandsin the
hopes that the men had somehow piloted the Sarah Joe to safety. Days turned into weeks and soon,
even themost optimistic onlookers had no choice but to face the facts. Memorial services were held
soon after thetragic conclusion to the search and rescue mission, with Scott, Peter, Patrick,
Benjamin,and Ralph being remembered fondly by members of the community. The Sarah Joe incident
had a profound effecton the tight-knit community of villagers, and it became an annual tradition to
dedicateFebruary 11th in the Sarah Joe’s honor, in remembrance of the men, their lives, andtheir
untimely deaths. Without active efforts to locate the SarahJoe, there was little hope of ever getting
closure for family and friends. It was impossible to know what exactly happenedafter the ship made its
last desperate communication with the village. The location of the ship’s remains or thoseof its crew
remained a mystery. Nine years later, however, a new twist emergedto the case, answering some
questions while raising many more. On September 9th, 1988, a wildlife expeditionled by the National
Marine Fisheries Service was conducting research in Ratak Chain ofthe Marshall Islands, over 2000 miles
away from Maui. While exploring near a coral atoll known asBokak Atoll or Taongi Atoll that was
thought to be uninhabited, researchers spotted theremains of a Boston Whaler on the island’s beach. In
an uncanny coincidence, one of the researchers– John Naughton – who spotted the boat happened to
have been part of the initialsearch party for the Sarah Joe almost a decade earlier. A marine biologist by
trade, Naughton hadbeen enlisted by the families of the five missing sailors in the early days of the
search. Now, the sight of an eerily similar ship tothat of the Sarah Joe mystified Naughton, and he
embarked with his crew to investigate. Once on land, Naughton inspected the remainsof the ship and
found that a few letters of the boat registration could be made out, includingthe first two letters, “HA,”
revealing that the boat was registered in the HawaiianIslands. Naughton was all but sure that this was,
infact, the missing Sarah Joe. Following this discovery, Naughton and hiscrew scoured the island for
further clues or inhabitants. While they found no humans on the island,they quickly made an even more
shocking and perplexing discovery: a shallow grave bearinga driftwood cross. While Naughton and his
team refrained fromexcavating the site themselves out of respect, they were able to see bones
protruding fromthe grave, as well as a mysterious stack of blank papers left atop the remains.
Naughton’s suspicions were confirmed soonafter, when the Coast Guard ran the remaining registration
numbers of the boat through thesystem and found that it was a positive match for the Sarah Joe. One
piece of the mystery could now be conclusivelysolved, but the new information immediately raised a
tremendous amount of questions. What was the Sarah Joe doing more than 2000miles away from
where it had started? Who did the grave belong to? Who even built the grave and buried the remainsin
it? In the weeks that followed, the US Coast Guardsent six search teams and a two-man forensic team
from Tripler Army Medical Center in Honoluluto search the area and recover what evidence they could
for further analysis. Lab testing revealed that the bones belongedto Scott Moorman, but none of the
bones matched other members of the Sarah Joe’s crew. Even stranger still, Naughton had not beenthe
first researcher to observe the Bokak Atoll over the past nine years. In 1984, a US Government research
survey ofthe island had been conducted and reported nothing out of the ordinary, meaning
thatresearchers either failed to report the presence of a boat and grave or the boat and gravewere not
on the island yet. Both explanations have issues in terms oflikelihood and logistics, yet what else could
explain this discrepancy? Since the discovery, experts have estimatedthat the Sarah Joe would have
taken approximately three months to drift the distance betweenMaui and Bokak Atoll, an incredible
length of time for anyone to survive, especiallygiven the relative lack of supplies that the men brought
with them for the journey. Additionally, the boat likely would have neededto withstand extreme
weather conditions, including 40-foot waves that capsized much larger shipsduring the February 11th
storm. Now, 41 years after the initial incident andalmost 32 years after John Naughton’s discovery, the
Sarah Joe incident remains the subjectof much speculation. Different theories have been put forward
overthe years, including a theory proposed by Hawaii private investigator Steve Goodenowthat attempts
to explain the mysterious stack of papers found near Scott Moorman’s grave. After visiting Bokak Atoll,
Goodenow theorizedthat the papers relate to an ancient Chinese ritual for the burying of the dead, with
thepapers symbolizing good luck in the afterlife. Chinese fishers have been known to illegallyfish in the
waters near Bokak Atoll, and it is conceivable that a Chinese fishing vesselcame across Scott Moorman’s
remains in the Sarah Joe, and, rather than reporting thefindings, chose to bury his remains on a nearby
island to avoid punishment for illegal fishing. The presence of the driftwood cross, however,does call this
theory into question, as it seems unlikely that a Christian symbol wouldappear alongside a non-Christian
ritual offering. More outlandish speculation claims that theSarah Joe was caught in a government
experiment to alter the weather, thus causing the extremestorm that swept the ship away. There is no
evidence to support this howeverDebate continues about whether Scott Moorman could have made it
to the island alive, withsome arguing that he could have survived the three-month trip by rationing what
littlesupplies he had access to. Others, including Ralph’s brother, Robert,believe that Scott likely tied
himself to the boat to prevent being thrown overboardand was dead long before reaching Bokak Atoll.
The general consensus is that Scott was thesole survivor, with the rest of the men likely being lost to the
storm. Nevertheless, prior to John Naughton’s discovery,the suggestion that the Sarah Joe would be
found nine years later and more than 2000miles away would have seemed extremely far-fetched,
leading some to wonder if other members ofthe crew may have survived, perhaps ending up on other
islands across the Pacific. As it stands, there is simply not enough evidenceto draw any conclusions
about what truly happened to the Sarah Joe. Patrick’s brother, Michael Woessner, triesnot to focus on
the theories and explanations, saying, “It’s all speculation. Everyone has their own thoughts on it. The
thing is that they didn’t come back. They’re gone.” Even though Scott, Peter, Patrick, Benjamin,and
Ralph may be gone, their memory lives on in the hearts and minds of the Hawaiiansin Hana and
elsewhere, ensuring that their legacy will never die.