HOAX on Yacht Explosion off the coast of New Jersey

Seems so. I hope they find the defective mind behind this, and teach him/her a trade at State/Fed expense. Maybe license plate production.....

hahaha ... well put ...

I was alerted to this by several yachty friends just after the story broke. As soon as I read "solar powered VHF'" I knew it would turn out to be a hoax. Also I knew the general location of 2 Blind Dates. I felt pretty confident that the Trinity I am on was not about to explode and sink. As the engineer I am sure I could blow her up, but it might be tough!

Amazing how the media can run so hard with just an unconfirmed far fetched rumor!!

My first thought when I saw the headline was that a Megayacht doesn't explode... It can burn, it can take on water but they just don't explode! And I'd they burn and do a Yogi, they have enough equipment send accurate maydays.

Then of course, journalist tend to call anything over 40' a "luxury yacht"...

I sure hope they catch these folks as one of us could have had a real emergency. Senseless and cost all tax payers money for these kinds of hoaxes. The reward should be higher!

That's pretty much the standard these days Pascal... every media outlet is terrified they'll be scooped by every other media outlet, so they all rush to instantly publish anything, just in case it's real.

I don't know if the media should take the blame on this one. From the film clips Sandy Hook was covered in ambulances and rescue staff, Anyone looking at that site and hearing the intial VHF communications would have thought it to be a real event. They actually were pretty quick in identifying it as a hoax.

I was on the water outside Jones Beach/inlet off Long Island and heard the whole incident on the radio from the USCG transmissions mostly. I did hear the USCG tell of a fireball and explosion and asked for confirmation of mariners- none of which came. I also heard the CG tell the "ship" to activate the EPRIB and insure all passengers to don life preservers. The person apparently did not know what a EPRIB was .... I heard the radio chatter of airborne units. Later in the afternoon about 5:15 I heard a party boat captain off Sandy Hook tell the CG he's seen nothing as did all of the close by fishing fleet- see nothing. While it was too far away to assist, it was interesting. By my return to the slip around 5:45 the search was still ongoing with nothing found.

The CG is now offering a $3000 reward for info: The Coast Guard's Offering $3,000 Reward For Yacht Explosion Hoax Info