The mystery of the tattered "ghost ship" that washed up on a Florida beach has been solved. Photo

A shredded 14-meter sailboat washed up on a beach in Florida. This event attracted the attention of many locals, who began to call it a "ghost ship".

For the people who first saw the boat wash up on the beach, it was associated with mystery and intrigue. But for its owner, 39-year-old Michael Barlow, the ship had a name: "Lady Catherine III" and its own story, MailOnline writes.

To buy this sailing ship, Michael spent most of his savings. He invested $80,000, intending to "explore the world," but was forced to abandon the ship and ask the coast guard to conduct a rescue operation. This is how the empty Lady Catherine, bought by Barlow in May, eventually ended up on the sandy shores of Florida, but the full story is much longer and more complicated.

And it started with Barlow's dream of living a freer, more fulfilling life with his wife and 9-year-old son: "We were just going to explore the world. We're normal people. We have normal finances, very, very basic. And this is the only way I could show my son that there's a whole world out there other than the one in America," Michael commented.

More than a month ago, Barlow and a friend embarked on a 1,500-kilometer journey from Fort Pierce, Florida, back to Texas, where he was ready to close his excavation business and sell off his possessions to finance his new lifestyle. A few days before the official departure, they studied the weather conditions and concluded that "the forecast was excellent."

A week after Barlow's first voyage on the Lady Catherine, however, the initially ideal sailing conditions changed dramatically: "The sea began to get rough, and a strong wind blew, which almost never abated for the next two days," the owner shares his impressions.

A series of storms caused waves to crash into the hull and strong winds to tear the sails, but Barlow remained unfazed. At first. For three days, he battled the terrible weather that slowly destroyed his vessel, but he was able to stay in touch with his family using a Garmin tracker. They knew his exact location the entire time, which was one of the reasons why Barlow eventually made it out of the ordeal alive. Still, the ship was too badly damaged to continue moving. To make matters worse, his loyal crewmember began to freeze to death.

"The autopilot broke down during the first storm, so we steered manually for three days. My friend had all the symptoms of hypothermia, he went down and lost consciousness. He was unconscious for the whole time. I was sitting there watching the sea rise, so I started making radio calls to see if there was anyone within range who could help us. No one answered," Barlow said in an interview.

Just when he thought all hope was lost, he pressed the SOS button on his Garmin, which allowed him to establish a direct connection with the Coast Guard in New Orleans. Rescuers later reported that Barlow and his friend were picked up on June 1 about 300 km south of Panama City, Florida. A Coast Guard officer radioed that they were "about to get into trouble again" and that they had three hours to rescue them. Michael was told that he would need to make a sacrifice. His boat for $80,000 or his life.

"We can come for you right now, but you have to leave the ship. You're definitely risking your life if you stay," Michael said, recalling what the Coast Guard told him. Barlow decided to survive by leaving the doomed ship.

Richard Hoofle, a rescue swimmer aboard the helicopters sent to Barlow's location, said they dodged storms left and right during their journey over the Persian Gulf. And when they arrived at the site, it was already completely dark. The night vision video released by the Coast Guard shows the boat bobbing in the rough waves, with its main sail almost completely torn off.

The same video also shows the rescue of two men, during which a rescuer jumped from a helicopter directly into the water. "It was like a movie. He jumped out of the helicopter into this crazy big sea and swam to us with just a mask and a snorkel," Barlow said.

The dramatic video shows Michael and his friend being lifted into the sky and then flown back to Panama.

For several weeks, no one knew the whereabouts of the Lady Catherine. But when residents of Pensacola began posting images of the wrecked ship on social media, Barlow was able to locate it.

Despite his experience, Michael is still a novice sailor, and he was not intimidated by the storm experience or the financial difficulties he faced: "It definitely didn't shake my resolve to sail. I love the ocean. I respect the ocean. It is relentless and beautiful at the same time," he says.

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