Search for 2 Missing Teen Boaters Suspended

The U.S. Coast Guard has announced that the search for Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen will end at sunset Friday.

The search entered its eighth day Friday morning with clues about the boys’ whereabouts scarce.

Over the course of the 8-day search window, the Coast Guard and partner agencies have “conducted 30 days of searching,” a Coast Guard official stated during a Friday afternoon press conference announcing the search’s suspension.

The 14-year-olds from Jupiter were last seen around 1:30 p.m. July 24 when they filled up their boat with $110 in gas and headed out for a fishing trip. When the two didn’t return as expected, authorities were notified and the U.S. Coast Guard kicked off a search that began shortly after 5 p.m. last Friday.

Since the search began, the Coast Guard and other agencies have covered nearly 44,000 square nautical miles in their efforts to locate Austin and Perry, the Coast Guard stated in a release to media. The search so far has encompasses waters from Florida’s Atlantic coastline north to the Charleston, S.C., area.

On Sunday, a Coast Guard crew out of Clearwater found the boys’ 19-foot boat capsized about 67 nautical miles off the coast of Ponce Inlet. A single life jacket was found floating in the water, but there was no trace of the boys.

While the official search is coming to an end, the boys’ families are holding out hope.

“They are extremely athletic and knowledgeable about the water and we know that they are doing everything that they possibly can to stay afloat and wait for us to come and get them,” WESH.com quoted Pamela Cohen, Perry’s mother, as saying.

The families are offering a $100,000 reward for the safe return of their sons. They are also asking anyone who sees anything “unusual” in the waters off the east coast to report in with local officials immediately.

The families have announced a private search for the boys will continue.

Photos of Perry and Austin courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard