Two men and a dog were sailing from Cape May, New Jersey, to Florida on Thanksgiving and had a voyage that they both agreed was a “miracle.” They survived after 10 days of floating adrift at sea.
Joe DiTomasso, 76, and Kevin Hyde, 65, were aboard Hyde’s 30-foot boat, the Atrevida II, after DiTomasso called his friend “goofy” when Hyde mentioned he was sailing to Florida alone.
“I said I’ll go with you,” DiTomasso said. “I had a hell of an experience. You don’t know what 40-foot waves look like.”
The men told their story and answered questions upon their return home on December 11 during a press conference in New York Harbor.
Hyde, DiTomasso, and his dog Minnie set sail on the Atrevida II for Florida. On November 27, the boat made a pit stop in Oregon Inlet, North Carolina, on December 3.
The sailors got underway again that day, heading away from the Carolinas and south toward Florida. They were greeted by mountain-sized waves that battered their boat and pushed them off course and out to sea with little access to food or water.
“It was a clear, nice day when we left … it was beautiful,” DiTomasso said. “That night came in, I never heard wind so bad in my whole life … it sounded like the devil was out there.”
When the storm subsided, Hyde said he put a makeshift sail together and felt he was back on course. That feeling didn’t last long, however.
“I kept checking my GPS, and we were actually losing more ground,” Hyde said.
The men’s families contacted the U.S. Coast Guard to report the men missing at sea, as they had not been heard from since December 3.
The U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Navy, and maritime partners launched a search for the men spanning 21,164 square miles of water from New Jersey to northern Florida.
The Silver Muna, a 600-foot-long ship, located the trio approximately 214 miles east of Delaware.
“The Atrevida II was found to be without fuel and power, rendering their radios and navigation equipment inoperable,” the Coast Guard reported on December 13.
Neeraj Chaudhary, the Silver Muna’s captain, said he was praying for the men he safely rescued.
“It was [a] very difficult rescue, as [Hyde and DiTomasso] said, because the swell was 50 feet and we have loaded tankers, and that was very difficult to rescue them,” he said. “I was praying like, ‘God, save them. Our rescue should be successful.’ So finally, we did it, and this is the win for all our crew and for us.”
Chaudhary brought the men and the dog into New York Harbor, where the Coast Guard reunited them with their families.
Hyde said his boat was so far off course that if the Silver Muna hadn’t discovered them, they might never have been found.
“It was just kind of a small miracle that we were found at all to tell you the truth,” he said.
Both men were happy to be home and are looking forward to celebrating Christmas with family, especially one little girl.
“She just kept me alive,” DiTomasso said as his granddaughter ran into his arms. “All I asked the Lord was to see my granddaughter.”
