According to the parents of one of the boys, the boat carrying Perry Cohen and Austin Stephanos, the two Florida teens lost at sea last summer, and an iPhone belonging to one of them has been found.
A Norwegian research vessel Edda Fjord was on its way back to Norway on March 18, about 100 miles off the coast of Bermuda, when it found the capsized boat, Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Ryan Doss said. The crew lowered a small boat to examine the craft and was identified as the teens’ boat by the serial number on the engine.
The Norway crew moved the research craft to the boat and used a crane to bring the craft on board. They reported their findings to the U.S. Coast Guard immediately. All of the items have been turned over to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Cohen and Stephanos went missing July 24, 2015, after leaving the Jupiter Inlet in a 19-foot Seacraft boat. The U.S. Coast Guard first located the boat off the coast of New Smyrna Beach days later, but it was gone when they went back to tow it days later.
The family is hoping that information on the iPhone or the boat lead to more clues about where the boys were and what happened.
“This has been nine months now of pain and suffering. We’d like to have some sort of closure,” Nick Korniloff, Cohen’s father, said in a telephone interview with The Palm Beach Post.
Mother Pamela Cohen said the family has received well-wishes from people worldwide.
“We just want to know the answers,” she said. “We just want to try to figure out what happened.”
The families have since moved their focus to helping others, promoting boating safety and raising money for charity.
