On the morning of February 11, 1979, five men departed the tiny Hana Bay on Hawaii’s Maui Island for a day of fishing aboard a seventeen-foot Boston whaler dubbed the Sarah Joe. Hana, on the eastern side of Maui, had no television stations, and because the radio stations had issued weather reports primarily for the western side of Maui, the men set sail without checking the forecast. Had they done so, they may have averted what is now a forty-five-year mystery.
By mid-afternoon, a fierce storm swept across the waters. When the men had not returned by evening, the Coast Guard began a five-day search that produced no results.
Inexplicably, the Sarah Joe was found over nine years later in a different region of the Pacific Ocean. The discovery, however, raised more questions than answers.
The Crew Of the Sarah Joe
The five experienced fishermen aboard the Sarah Joe were Ralph Malaiakini, 27; Peter Hanchett, 31; Scott Moorman, 27; Benjamin Kalama, 38; and Patrick Woessner, 26. The crew were locals who knew the waters well, in particular Mailaiakini, a professional fisherman.
When the men departed from Hana, one of Maui Island’s traditional fishing villages, at 10:00 a.m., the waters were still and the weather was picturesque. It was merely the calm before the storm.
The Five Fishermen
At 1:00 p.m., a freak wind swept over the mountains, the first warning that a storm was brewing. By mid-afternoon the waters were ravaging, making for treacherous travels. Currents in the Alenuihaha Channel, separating the islands of Maui and Hawaii, are swift, and the Sarah Joe likely became trapped in the storm.
After searches by friends and family produced nothing, the Coast Guard mounted a search for the fishermen and the Sarah Joe. After five days of combing 73,000 square miles, it, too, was unsuccessful.
The Fishermen Are Not Found
While on a wildlife expedition on September 9, 1988, marine biologist John Naughton, who had been involved in the original search for the Sarah Joe nearly ten years earlier, spotted a wrecked boat on Taongi, a tiny atoll in the Marshall Islands, 2,300 miles southwest of Maui.
Upon examination, Naughton found letters and registration numbers matching those of the Sarah Joe.
John Nauhghton
National Marines Fisheries Service Biologist
Naughton and his crew told the Coast Guard of their finding and officials confirmed the identification. After nearly a decade of drifting across the Pacific Ocean, the remnants of the tiny Sarah Joe were found.
Near the boat, Naughton and his team had also found the first clue relating to one of the whaler’s passengers.
The Sarah Joe Is Recovered
Near the hull of the Sarah Joe was a makeshift grave of a crudely-made wooden cross in the form of driftwood placed in a pile of coral rocks. Protruding from the pile was a human jawbone. When the gravesite, appearing to have only recently been erected, was excavated, a partial human skeleton was uncovered.
Dental records showed the remains were those of Scott Moorman. Several other smaller bones found beyond the gravesite were also confirmed his, but it could not be determined how or when he had died.
No other skeletal remains were found on the islet.
The Bones Are Those of Scott Moorman
Also intriguing was the finding of unusual pieces of neatly-folded paper which had, most certainly, been deliberately buried in the grave. Between each piece of paper, all measuring three-by-four inches, was a small piece of tin foil.
Some believe the papers, similar to those pictured, were Joss paper, also known as “Ghost Money,” or “Hell Money” used in Chinese burial rituals. When burying the deceased, the Chinese traditionally include in the coffin small pieces of paper separated by gold or silver foil. The Joss paper is interred with the corpse to ensure good fortune in the afterlife.
The burial tradition matches how Scott Moorman’s bones were buried. It is theorized that fishermen of Chinese descent could have found his remains and given him a proper burial according to their customs. They may not have reported the finding because they were illegally fishing on Taongi Atoll.
Joss Paper
Oceanographers believe it would have taken approximately three months for the Sarah Joe to have drifted the 2,300 miles to Taongi Atoll in the Ratak chain of the Marshall Islands, but it seems unlikely it could have survived a severe storm and be found relatively intact. The whaler with only an eighty-five-horsepower engine was designed for coastal use and was not equipped for major sea voyages.
The isolated Taongi was considered a site for atomic bomb testing during World War II. The only inhabitants ever recorded on the atoll had been a few Japanese soldiers killed by the Allies during the war. A United States government survey of Taongi in 1985, three years before the boat was discovered, found no sign of the Sarah Joe or of Scott Moorman’s gravesite.
The Sarah Joe Is Found Way Off Course
The discovery of the Sarah Joe raised more questions that it brought answers:
• Could the small boat, after its crew slowly died of hunger and thirst, floated over two-thousand miles in the Pacific Ocean for nearly a decade?
• The lagoon of the Taongi Atoll had only one narrow entrance through the reef and islands where a boat could enter. Did the Sarah Joe float through that narrow channel to the land on her own or was she steered in?
• When, and by whom, was Scott Moorman buried?
• Were the partially burned sheets of paper on his grave part of an Asian tradition of burying the dead?
• Why was Scott’s jawbone on top of the grave and his other bones buried?
• What happened to the four other men of the Sarah Joe?
The Fishermen Are Not Forgotten
More often than not, Mother Nature does not give up her secrets.
For the fate of the crew of the Sarah Joe, it seem she has, as she often does, dropped only a nugget to tease us.
Mother Nature Is Not Talking
In searching for the missing fishermen, a Coast Guard helicopter carried three homing pigeons specially trained by the Naval Oceans Systems Center in San Diego to spot international orange or red, the universal emergency color generally used for life vests and life rafts.
The birds’ excellent color vision and endurance were expected to vastly increase the search capability of aircraft, but the pigeon-equipped helicopter encountered engine trouble and was forced to make a landing near Kona. No crew members were hurt, but the pigeons, the only such rescue trained birds in the world, were lost.
Birds Lost
Ralph Malaiakini had borrowed the Sarah Joe from his twin brother, Robert. The five men had been building Robert’s house, but had decided to take a day off to hit the waters.
The Sarah Joe, named after the brothers’ mom and dad, today sits in the back yard of Robert Malaiakini’s Hawaiian home.
Today, the Sarah Joe Sits Instead Of Sails
SOURCES:
- Hawaii Tribune-Herald
- Los Angeles Times
- The Maui News
- Unsolved Mysteries
The comment about them slowly starving to death is the most likely scenario. They probably tossed the dead men overboard so there were no rotting corpses in the boat, attracting sharks. Scott was probably the last surviving one. His body, or just the skeleton was most likely buried in the tradition of the people who buried him. The jaw bone was probably dropped when they were moving the skeleton to the grave, and not found until they had covered the body. Not wanting to completely did the grave up again, they just stuck it in the sand a little way. Wind could have blown off enough sand to expose the bone. Another possibility is that the other 4, or some of them, went overboard during the storm. Scott could have been injured, knocked unconscious and either died, or had drifted to an area he did not recognize and was unable to find his way back.