GULFPORT, Miss. (WKRG) –  The U.S. Coast Guard station in Gulfport rescued a second group of boaters on Tuesday, Jan. 31, one day after a rescue miles down the shoreline.

The branch’s public affairs unit confirmed Tuesday afternoon that Victoria Farr, 42; Richard Allen, 37; Piper Farr, 12; and Chase Craig, 11 were rescued around 12:10 p.m. after they were reported missing about 8 hours earlier.

The Coast Guard Sector in Mobile received a call around 4:27 a.m. from a concerned family friend stating two adults and two children aboard did not come home after their expected return time of 8 p.m near Biloxi Bay.

The group was in a 19-foot red and white Mako skiff-style boat. The boaters’ truck and trailer was found unattended at the Pass Christian Harbor early Tuesday morning.

A 19-foot red and white Mako skiff four overdue boaters were aboard before going missing in the vicinity of Biloxi Bay near Biloxi, Mississippi, on Jan. 31, 2023. Photo courtesy: U.S. Coast Guard

Military personnel launched two rescue boats from the Pascagoula station, one from the Gulfport station, Coast Guard Cutter Tiger Shark and an aircraft from the Coast Guard Aviation Training Center in Mobile to search for the group. 

Other crews from the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources (DMR), National Park Service and Jackson County Sheriff’s Department also searched for the boaters.

The DMR boat crew rescued the boaters and took them to the Port of Gulfport while the Coast Guard boat crew towed the disabled boat back to Station Gulfport.

“Thanks to the coordination between our units and partner agencies, we were able to locate the four missing boaters and bring them back home to their friends and family,” said Ensign Moriya French, a command duty officer at Coast Guard Sector Mobile. “This incident serves as a reminder to the boating public to always have proper VHF-FM radio communication equipment, an EPIRB, SPOT GPS, and other geolocating devices onboard your vessel before going out to sea.”

The rescue came one day after three people were rescued from a sinking boat off the coast in Pascagoula. Coast Guard members found one boater in a life raft and two others standing on the bow of the boat after a distress alert called in around 8 a.m.