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Mystery of tattered 'ghost ship' that washed up on Florida beach is solved - and there's a heartbreaking twist
Pensacola Beach in Florida was the site of something extremely unusual last month - a shipwreck.
A tattered, 45-foot sailboat washed up on shore sometime on June 18, catching the eye of many nearby residents who took to calling it the 'ghost ship.'
For people like 46-year-old Francine Farrar, who was one of the first to see the boat coming in, it carried mystery and intrigue.
But for its owner, Michael Barlow, 39, the ship had a name: Lady Catherine III. More crucially, he had spent much of his life savings to purchase the now-destroyed vessel.
He sank $80,000 into the sailboat intending to 'explore the world' only to have to abandon ship and enlist the Coast Guard in a daring rescue operation.
Pictured: The 'ghost ship' the washed onshore Pensacola Beach in June, weeks after its captain and owner, Michael Barlow, had to be rescued by the Coast Guard
That's how the empty Lady Catherine, bought by Barlow in May, would eventually make its way to the sandy shores of the Florida panhandle, but the full story is much longer and more complicated than that.
It started with Barlow's dream to live a freer, more fulfilling life with his wife and 9-year-old son.
'We were just going to explore the world,' Barlow told NBC 6 South Florida.
'We’re normal people. We have normal finances, very, very basic. And this is the only way I could take my son and show him there’s a whole world out there, beyond what’s in America,' he said.
A little over a month ago, Barlow and his friend set sail on an 884-mile journey from Fort Pierce, Florida, back to Texas, where he was ready to close his excavation business and sell off his worldly possessions to fund his new lifestyle.
They studied the weather patterns for days before officially leaving, WEAR News reported, concluding that 'the forecast was beautiful.'
'We had 15 to 20 knots on our backs all the way home to Texas,' Barlow said.
Pictured: Michael Barlow stands in front of Lady Catherine sometime in late May, when he bought the boat
Lady Catherine is docked in Fort Pierce and shimmering with a strong blue paint job
Barlow is behind the wheel of his brand new $80,000 boat. Little did he know, it'd be wrecked in a matter of weeks
A week into Barlow's maiden voyage with Lady Catherine, the initially perfect sailing conditions changed drastically.
'The seas started building, wind hit us and it was 30 to 40 knots,' Barlow said. 'It pretty much stayed that way for the next two days.'
A series of storms sent waves crashing into the hull and high winds ripping at the sails, but Barlow remained undeterred.
At first.
'When it started getting crazy, I knew the boat could handle it and we just sent it.'
As he battled three days worth of horrendous weather that was slowly damaging his ship, he was able to stay in touch with his family via a Garmin tracker.
They knew his exact position the entire time, one of the reasons Barlow would eventually emerge alive from this ordeal.
Eventually, the ship was too badly compromised to continue on. Even worse, his loyal crewmate was beginning to freeze to death.
'The auto pilot broke in the first storm, so we had been hand steering for three days,' Barlow told WEAR News.
'[My friend] had all the symptoms of hypothermia and he went down below and passed out. He was unconscious throughout all of this.
Video from Coast Guard helicopters capture the sorry state of Lady Catherine, stranded in the Gulf of Mexico
Upon the Coast Guard's nighttime arrival, the boat was bobbing up and down in the rough waves, its main sail almost entirely torn off
A Coast Guard rescuer is seen boarding the wrecked ship
'I'm sitting there and watching these seas build, so I started hammering on the radio going through the procedures just seeing if there was someone within reach that could help us. No one was responding.'
Just when he thought all hope was lost, he hit the SOS button on his Garmin, which put him in direct contact with the Coast Guard in New Orleans.
The rescuers would later say Barlow and his friend were picked up on June 1 roughly 190 miles south of Panama City, Florida.
Over the radio, a Coast Guard member told Barlow he was 'about to get slammed again' and that they were three hours away from rescuing them.
But he was told he'd need to make a sacrifice. His $80,000 boat or his life.
'"We can come get you right now, but you have to leave the vessel,"' said Barlow, recalling what the Coast Guard said to him. '"You’re definitely rolling the dice on your life if you stay."'
Barlow chose to survive, fleeing his doomed ship.
Richard Hoefle, the rescue swimmer aboard the helicopters dispatched to Barlow's position, told WEAR News they were dodging storms left and right during their journey over the Gulf.
And when they got there, it was completely dark.
A night vision video posted to Facebook by the Coast Guard shows the boat bobbing up and down in the rough waves, its main sail almost entirely torn off.
The same video also depicts the harrowing rescue of the two men, which involved Hoefle jumping out of the helicopter straight into the water.
'It was like a movie,' Barlow said. 'Bro jumped in out of a helicopter in these mad big seas and swam over to us with nothing but snorkel gear on.'
While this wasn't a mundane task for Hoefle, who noted that he got sea sick just looking at the two men in the ocean, he showed unflinching confidence throughout the entire rescue.
'We are the Coast Guard, we are the absolute best in the world for this,' Hoefle said. 'You can just see the relief as they see the light at the end of the tunnel.'
The dramatic video shows Barlow and his friend being hoisted away into the sky before being flown back to Panama City.
Either Barlow or his friend is pictured getting hoisted up in a metal contraption by Coast Guard helicopters
For weeks, no one was certain where the Lady Catherine was. But when Pensacola residents began posting images of the wrecked vessel to social media, that's how Barlow was able to find her.
'I knew it was her,' he said.
Farrar, one of the people who saw the ship on shore, noticed people were stealing things from it.
So, she reached out to Barlow on social media and helped however she could.
'I would want someone to help me out. So I went and got a lock,' she said, adding that she watched over the boat until Barlow arrived in Pensacola.
Unfortunately, by the time he got there, it was looted of all his valuables.
Barlow will need to confront more unfortunate problems in the coming weeks now that state authorities know where his boat is.
Since he's the owner of what authorities call a 'derelict vessel,' he needs to get it off the beach or possibly face a felony criminal charge, punishable by a $5,000 fine or prison time, NBC reported.
Barlow is pictured with the Coast Guard officers that saved his life
'Yes, our officers have been in contact with Mr. Barlow,' Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesperson Faith Fawn said in statement. 'He has 30 days from the date the uniform boating citation was issued to bring his vessel into compliance.'
His options are to pay $20,000 to have the Lady Catherine taken to a dry dock for repairs that, in all likelihood, would cost more than the initial value of the boat.
Or he said he could pay a flat $28,000 to get it taken away and demolished.
'If we’re talking about business numbers, it’d make more sense to scrap the boat,' Barlow said. 'That’s just the stone-cold truth.'
Barlow also set up a GoFundMe page to help pay for the move and possible repairs to the ship.
'Removal will be a massive undertaking and so will repairs. We put our last into this, left our home and bet the farm. It's now washed up on shore and I don't know what else to do,' he wrote on the post.
So far, the campaign has raised over $9,000, rapidly closing in on its $10,000 goal.
Despite this tragedy, Barlow remains an aspiring seafarer, undaunted by his near death experience out in the Gulf nor by the financial ruin he's facing.
'This definitely did not shake my resolve as far as sailing goes. I love the ocean. I respect the ocean. It’s relentless and beautiful at the same time,' he said.