FALMOUTH, Maine — The search for a boater who went overboard Thursday night in Casco Bay continued overnight into Friday morning, but the efforts took a somber turn around 11 a.m., when the Coast Guard suspended its search and efforts turned from rescue to recovery.
U.S. Coast Guard Northern New England officials said the agency received a report around 8 p.m. on the Fourth of July that a person on a recreational boat fell overboard in Casco Bay near Clapboard Island.
Edward Berke, 30, of Hampton, New Hampshire, was on a boat with three friends traveling south from Falmouth when he apparently went overboard, the agency shared.
The Coast Guard said Friday that the people on the boat were driving along when they noticed at some point that Berke had gone missing, but they said they never saw him go into the water.
The focus of the search-and-rescue efforts Thursday night into Friday morning remained broadly on Casco Bay, there was increased focus in the vicinity of Chebeague Island, Lt. j.g. Matthew Bartnick told NEWS CENTER Maine around 10:30 a.m.
Crews faced the normal challenges that come with searching in the dark, but other factors such as wind or turbulent waters were not known to cause disruptions or delays into the morning.
"At the Coast Guard, we make all reasonable efforts to find a missing person in the maritime environment. It is a very difficult and calculated decision to determine how long search efforts will go on, but as of right now the Coast Guard is making all reasonable search efforts to find this missing person," Bartnick said.
The Coast Guard decided to suspend the search-and-rescue efforts around 11 a.m., effectively turning the mission into a search-and-recovery.
Capt. Matt Baker is the commander of Coast Guard Sector Northern New England. He spoke with members of the press at the USCG station in South Portland shortly after suspending the search.
"Unfortunately, because we did not find the individual, despite the extensive search, and based on the air temperature and water temperature late this morning, we regretfully came to the conclusion that there wasn’t any chance that we were going to find the victim alive," Baker said.
He said the water temperature was 59 degrees Fahrenheit.
Baker said searchers found Berke's flip flops in the water Thursday evening, but teams from 10 different agencies found no other evidence of the man in the water, and Baker said infrared scans of the shoreline turned up empty as well.
“We offer our sincere condolences to the family,” Baker said in a news release shortly after addressing the press. “We conduct every search and rescue mission with the hope of returning missing people to safety, which is why suspending any search and rescue effort is one of the hardest decisions I make. We are grateful for the dedication of the state and local agencies who contributed to this search effort.”
The Coast Guard led the search-and-rescue investigation with the assistance of about nine other state, local, and federal agencies, including the Falmouth Marine Patrol and harbormaster.
Once the search-and-rescue mission turned into a search-and-recovery effort, the Maine Marine Patrol took over as the lead agency in the investigation.
