SAN DIEGO – Rescuers stabilized the condition of a sick baby on a crippled sailboat hundreds of miles off the coast of Mexico and a U.S. Navy warship was steaming toward the vessel, officials said Friday night.
The 36-foot Rebel Heart was about 900 nautical miles southwest of Cabo San Lucas when it sent a satellite call for help to the U.S. Coast Guard Thursday morning that a 1-year-old girl aboard was ill.
The boat was owned by a San Diego family and was on a trip around the world, according to a website, therebelheart.com.
The California Air National Guard sent an aircraft with four pararescuemen from Moffett Federal Airfield near San Francisco, and they plunged into the water and reached the ship Thursday night, said 2nd Lt. Roderick B. Bersamina, spokesman for the Air National Guard’s 129th Rescue Wing.
When they arrived, Rebel Heart was “for all intents and purposes dead in the water and drifting south” away from land, Bersamina said.