A family with two small children who set sail on a round-the-world trip in their 36-foot boat were rescued 1,000 miles off Mexico's Pacific Coast after the one-year-old daughter fell seriously ill.
Eric Kaufman, a U.S. Coast Guard licensed captain, and his wife Charlotte, three-year-old Cora and Lyra, the youngest, set sail from Mexico in March, bound for the Marquesas, a Pacific island chain. They were following a route used by hundreds of small-boat sailors each year that is nicknamed the "coconut milk run" for its generally benign conditions.
But some 900 miles off the Mexican coast, Lyra developed a fever and a rash that wasn't responding to medications. The sailboat, Rebel Heart, also experienced a loss of steering and a power failure. That's when the family activated an emergency radio beacon known as an EPIRB, triggering an air-sea rescue.
A statement from the U.S. Navy on Sunday said:
"Sailors from Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate USS Vandegrift (FFG 48) assisted in the rescue of a family with a sick infant via the ship's small boat as part of a joint U.S. Navy, Coast Guard and California Air National Guard rescue effort. The Kaufman family and four Air National Guard pararescuemen were safely moved from the sailboat to Vandegrift, and the ship is now transiting to San Diego."