Lost at sea Lost at sea By DAVID BALLINGRUD, Times staff writer ©St. Petersburg Times, published March 13, 1994 LANTANA -- At 4:25 a.m. March 13, 1993, a call came into the 911 emergency center in Palm Beach County. An operator took the call, but could hear nothing.

Nothing but the crackle of static. The weather had been clear and calm two days earlier when Charles and Betty Muer, joined by lifelong friends George and Lynn Drummey, set sail from the Bahamas for the trip back to Florida. Now, in the early morning darkness,they were losing a desperate battle against 30-foot seas and winds of 70 miles an hour. At 4:27 a.m., a second call to the 911 center. Again, nothing. Nothing but static. It was the last anyone would hear from Charley's Crab.

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One year later, no trace of the 40-foot ketch or its four occupants has ever been found. They remain unaccounted for -- presumed victims of the 'Storm of the Century.'

'They almost made it home,' said the Muers' daughter, Susan. Chuck Muer was president of C.A. Of Detroit, a $65-million company that owns more than 20 seafood restaurants in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. George Drummey owned Drummey & Associates, a manufacturers agent for an automotive supplier. 'It's unusual not to find anything,' said Coast Guard Cmdr.

'Usually there's something, if not a body, then something that fell from the boat.' But the last presumed location of Charley's Crab was in the Gulf Stream, that river within an ocean a few miles off Florida's east coast. Drastic Ds Free Download Full on this page. The Gulf Stream runs swiftly north from here, widening on its long journey to the North Atlantic, helping the sea keep its secrets. The Gulf Stream, notes Howe, 'can take things a long way away.' 'It hit like a wall' Friday, March 12, the first day of her vacation, Susan Muer was staying up late, having a few cocktails with friends she had just picked up at the airport. She remembers a beautiful, if windy, night. Her parents had just begun a vacation, too, sailing in the Bahamas with the Drummeys, and weren't due back at the Muers' condo in Palm Beach until Sunday.

There were reports that a storm was coming, Susan Muer remembers, 'but we didn't realize its magnitude.' Her parents were experienced sailors. Chuck Muer spent much of his life sailing on Lake St. Clair, northeast of Detroit, and the last 30 years sailing in Florida and Bahamian waters. 'We used to sail in the Bahamas every year,' Susan said, 'sometimes for weeks at a time, the whole family.'

Gale warnings had been posted that day, calling for winds up to 47 knots. But Susan wasn't worried about her parents. Surely, she thought, they were anchored safely back at Chub Cay, near the Berry Islands. 'I thought, Dad has too much sense to get caught in a storm like this. My father was a very even-keeled guy. He would never take anyone out where he knew there was risk. I thought they were coming back Sunday, and I thought they might even fly.'

But there was something Susan didn't know. The Drummeys wanted to attend a party in Palm Beach on Saturday night, so the two couples had set sail a day early. As she relaxed with her friends, Susan Muer would have been startled to learn this: Just a few miles to the east her mother and father were at sea, heading Charley's Crab toward Jupiter. From the west, trouble moved fast. A vast, powerful winter storm was ripping across Florida at up to 70 mph, covering ground twice as fast as a normal storm, spinning off tornadoes and lighting up towering thunderheads with spectacular charges of electricity. Behind it lay thousands of flooded homes. A flotilla of small boats and large ships was either sinking or taking on water.

As the storm crossed the state, wind speeds were clocked at 80 mph. In Palm Beach, Susan Muer remembers, it was still pleasant about 1:30 a.m. 'Then about 4:20 a.m. It hit like a wall.' Five minutes later, cellular phone records would show, someone aboard Charley's Crab made the first call to the 911 center. Tiki Navigator Serial Keygens. At the leading edge of the storm, the winds were from the south, matching the direction of the waves in the Gulf Stream. The seas were rolling, relatively smooth.

But as the storm moved eastward, the southerly winds switched direction. Now blowing from the north, they ran head-on into the waves, creating steep canyons of water 20, 30 feet deep. 'When wind opposes sea, the waves build fast,' said Coast Guard Lt.

'It's the worst thing that can happen.' This violent confluence of wind and water can rip masts and antennae from a sailboat's deck.