On April 12, 2013 Jordan Hanssen, Markus Pukonen of OAR Northwest, set out to retrieve their boat, the James Robert Hanssen by way of the Tugboat Sentry. It took 2.5 days to reach the last coordinates acquired by chartered plane. It took 2 full days of searching for the boat before new coordinates by plane were reported. At 5:30am, the crew of Sentry and OAR Northwest set out to finally track down the boat. At 7:05am, one of the crew spotted a white dot on the horizon as the radar detector confirmed the same. After a lengthy struggle of trying to flip the boat, Jordan and Markus successfully righted it with the help of the tug’s crane. At around 11:30am, the James Robert Hanssen was lifted aboard with a few bumps along the way.
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Jordan & Markus watch as the JRH is lifted from its watery home of 73 rowing days + 10 adrift. Credit: Erinn J Hale Photography / CWF