Famed NFL quarterback Joe Namath is joining the desperate quest to find two Florida boys lost at sea after their boat apparently capsized.
Namath has put up an amazing $100,000 for the return of the teens who are both neighbors of his and who vanished together sometime on Friday afternoon, while on a fishing trip in their 19-foot motorboat.
An alert for the two 14-year-old “salty dog kids” and their vessel went out over the weekend once it was clear they hadn’t returned as expected, but, yesterday, their boat was finally found overturned.
There was no sign of missing person Austin Stephanos nor his companion Perry Cohen, however, and the search team that located their capsized boat reported finding just one flotation device near the wreck.
Over 15,000 square nautical miles of the Atlantic Ocean has already been scoured in hopes of finding the two, now known for certain to be lost at sea.
That search starts anew today, with a focus on the waters near Daytona Beach which encompasses some 33,000 square miles -- or an area roughly the size of Maine.
If each missing teen is wearing an orange preserver, this will aid in a speedier recovery, said a Coast Guard spokesman this morning. But even so, "it's a needle in a haystack out there, and that is one of the reasons why lifejackets are always orange, so it gives us better visibility in cases like this."
It isn’t clear what caused the boys to flip over, or where they may be if they haven’t in fact drowned or been eaten by sharks, but "there was no debris around the capsized vessel," and “the boat hasn't been raided,” which, hopefully, rules out pirates.
"I know they know what they’re doing,” assured Joe Namath, who’s evidently known the pair of missing seafarers since they were just toddlers.
“Austin’s been sharp and on the water a good while -- Perry is just as sharp as can be,” the NFL Hall-of-Famer said. “We just keep on praying."
