The families of four British sailors that went missing in the Atlantic Ocean three days ago are pleading with the U.S. Coast Guard to continue the search, Reuters reported.
The four men went missing on Friday when their 40-foot yacht capsized in the Atlantic nearly 1,000 miles off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The Coast Guard stopped the search on Sunday, saying it did not have the resources to maintain a wide-spread search, Reuters reported.
The missing men are identified as Steve Warren, 52; Paul Goslin, 56; James Male, 23; and the captain, Andrew Bridge, 21. They sailed to the Caribbean for Antigua Sailing Week and were on their way back to Britain when their yacht Cheeki Rafiki started to take on water.
Kay Coombes, Warren's sister, said the sailors would have survived the incident by abandoning the boat in a life raft.
"We appreciate everything that the U.S. Coast Guard and the Canadian coastguard have already done but we would just like them to search a little bit longer," Coombes told the BBC, according to Reuters.
The Coast Guard said they regret not finding the sailors during the search, which covered 4,000 square miles.
"We are extremely disappointed that we were not able to locate the sailors during the course of this extensive search," Captain Anthony Popiel said in a statement obtained by Reuters. "Our thoughts and prayers are with their families during this difficult time."
All four sailors are said to be "very experienced offshore yachtsmen," the Mirror reported.
The UK-based yacht training and charter company Stormforce Coaching, which paid the captain for his services on the yacht, said it was "devastated" that the search was called off after two days. The firm said it lost contact with the sailors sometime after the incident and that they could have escaped in a life raft, the Mirror reported.
A change.org petition is demanding that the Coast Guard and British Foreign Secretary William Hague continue the search. It has received over 20,000 signatures as of Monday.
