Skip to footer

Family with sick baby, sailing around the world, rescued by US Navy

Eric and Charlotte Kauffman and their two daughters were rescued in the Pacific Ocean after their youngest became ill and their sailboat disabled. When is too early for extensive adventures with kids?

|
US Navy Photo Handout/Reuters
Sailors from Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate USS Vandegrift assist in the rescue of a family with a sick infant as part of a joint US Navy, Coast Guard, and California Air National Guard rescue effort in the Pacific Ocean on April 6, 2014.
  • By Staff Associated Press

With their one-year-old daughter improving after a US Navy ocean rescue, her parents defended their decision to sail with two young children on a trip around the world aboard a 36-foot sailboat.

The child who fell ill during the voyage and her family were heading to San Diego aboard the warship where she can receive further medical treatment after their rescue Sunday from their stalled sailboat hundreds of miles off the Mexican coast.

"We understand there are those who question our decision to sail with our family, but please know that this is how our family has lived for seven years, and when we departed on this journey more than a year ago, we were then and remain today confident that we prepared as well as any sailing crew could," San Diego couple Eric and Charlotte Kaufman said in a statement from the USS Vandegrift.

"The ocean is one of the greatest forces of nature, and it always has the potential to overcome those who live on or near it. We are proud of our choices and our preparation," the statement said.

The Kaufmans, their 1-year-old daughter Lyra, and her 3-year-old sister Cora, had started across the Pacific in March when the baby girl developed a fever and a rash covering most of her body and wasn't responding to medications. They sent a satellite call for help to the US Coast Guard on Thursday after their 36-foot sailboat Rebel Heart lost steering and communication abilities about 900 miles southwest of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

Four California Air National Guard members parachuted into the water and reached the boat Thursday night. The crew stabilized the girl, stayed by her side and then hopped on an inflatable boat with the family to board the USS Vandegrift.

The frigate was expected to arrive in San Diego midweek, Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Barry Bena said.

Authorities decided to sink the Rebel Heart because it was taking on water, Bena said.

Charlotte Kaufman's sister, Sariah Kay English, posted on her Facebook page that the family took only what they could carry from the broken boat.

The Kaufmans said in the statement they were disappointed to lose their sailboat they called home.

Before the family left for the trip, Lyra had salmonella poisoning, but doctors cleared her to travel after she was healthy again, Ms. English said.

When her sister first mentioned plans to sail with two young children, English recalled, "I thought it was nuts."

But English said the couple was always careful. Eric Kaufman is a Coast Guard-licensed captain who introduced Charlotte Kaufman to sailing during one of their early dates.

"They were not going into this blind. I knew they were doing this wisely," English said.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Family with sick baby, sailing around the world, rescued by US Navy
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Family/2014/0407/Family-with-sick-baby-sailing-around-the-world-rescued-by-US-Navy
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe