THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

The coastguard searches for five days, and the men’s family and friends continue searching for another week.  They find nothing.  Nothing at all.  Not a trace of the men, not one piece of the boat.  Nine and a half years later, one of the searchers, the marine biologist John Naughton, finds a wrecked boat on the beach of Taongi, the northernmost and driest atoll of the Marshall Islands, 3,750 kilometres west of Hawaii.  A Hawaiian registration number is prominently displayed on the fibreglass hull.  It is the Sarah Joe.  There is a simple grave nearby: a cross of driftwood on a pile of stones.  A few bones protrude from the sand.  These are discovered to be the remains of Scott Moorman.  Who buried him here and where the other men are remains a mystery.

Schalansky, Islands