Molokai sailor’s makeshift radio repairs touched off rescue
Cmdr. John Barsano
Ron Ingraham, who was rescued after 12 days at sea, salutes the Navy for picking up his radio signal after he made makeshift repairs to get his radio working.
“Those guys are like real-live heroes,” Ingraham told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in a telephone interview from Molokai on Wednesday afternoon. He also thanked the Coast Guard for his rescue.
Ingraham and his 25-foot sailboat, Malia, returned to Kaunakakai Harbor at 8:50 a.m. Wednesday with the assistance of the U.S. Coast Guard.
The Molokai-based fisherman had been missing since Nov. 27 when his first mayday call was picked up by the Coast Guard, prompting a five-day search by the Coast Guard and Navy southwest of Maui that ended Dec. 1 without any sign of Ingraham.
The Coast Guard received another mayday call from Ingraham Tuesday morning. He was rescued by the guided-missile destroyer USS Paul Hamilton 64 miles south of Honolulu.
“My radio was out because the mast hit the water,” Ingraham said. “I got a piece of coat hanger and copper wire and stuck it right in the unit and put it out the door. The lady on watch on that destroyer picked up the blip.”
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He said his rescuers were able to triangulate his signal to find his location.
He said stormy winds blew him hundreds of miles of course, south of where rescuers were searching for him, and he survived on raw fish while traveling back to Molokai. He said his GPS gave him incorrect coordinates, which he relayed in his first mayday call.
“I’m a little tired, but I got cleaned up and I haven’t slept yet, but I’m refreshed,” he said.
His estranged son says the ordeal has prompted him to reunite with the father he hasn’t spoken with since the 1990s.
After the mariner went missing, the Coast Guard contacted Ingraham’s son, Zakary, in Missouri.
Zakary Ingraham says he then felt waves of regret for the years of lost contact, but he couldn’t shake a feeling that his “tough guy” dad was still alive.
Zakary Ingraham says he’s now making arrangements to travel to Hawaii for a reunion.
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The Associated Press contributed to this story.
