Yesterday we posted about an odd distress call. The Coast Guard now considers the report that the yacht Blind Date exploded off the coast of New Jersey to be a likely hoax.  No debris from the yacht was ever found. Nor were the reported liferafts ever spotted.  The Coast Guard has begun an investigation into the probable hoax.

The good news is that the system worked.  Within minutes after a report that a yacht had exploded off the New Jersey coast, over 200 first responders were mobilized.  Coast Guard helicopters and boats were dispatched to locate the 21 passengers believed to be in life boats.  Private boats and local harbor police also joined in the search.  The other good news is that it appears that no passengers were actually injured or put at risk by an explosion.  The bad news is that the response tot he hoax cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and put first responders at risk.

The other interesting aspect of the probable hoax was how fast the new spread around the globe. Within slightly over an hour, news outlets across the United States picked up the story as did newspaper websites in India and China.  A New Zealand newspaper even identified one of the yacht’s crew as being a Kiwi.

There also appears to be at least two yachts named Blind Date which might have fit the description of the mystery yacht.  One Blind Date is a 130′ yacht built in the Dutch yard, Heesen. The other is a 160′ yacht built by Trinity.