Week-long search fails to find missing kayak couple as slew of water safety incidents kills 10 in two months

By The Phuket News

 

A Royal Thai Navy sailor scours the horizon for any couple of the missing kayak couple Mateusz Juszkiewicz and Werakan Siriprakon. Photo: Royal Thai Navy
 

After a week of of searching by air and sea, hopes are quickly fading of finding Polish tourist Mateusz Juszkiewicz, 26, and Thai national Werakan Siriprakon, 23, from Nakhon Sawan, safe.

 

The couple disappeared while kayaking with friends off Yanui Beach last Saturday (Dec 7). Mr Juszkiewicz and friends had rented four kayaks to explore the waters and small island just offshore Yanui Beach, but when the group returned ashore at about 6:30pm Mr Juszkiewicz and Ms Werakan – together on the same kayak – were missing.

 

Mr Juszkiewicz’s friends told police that he had called them while they were on the way back to the beach, and that he said that he and Ms Werakan were still far away and not able to return to the shore. They lost contact after that.

Full story: https://www.thephuketnews.com/week-long-search-fails-to-find-missing-kayak-couple-as-slew-of-water-safety-incidents-kills-10-in-two-months-73996.php#wglalOhdzTOOdMyQ.97

 

-- © Copyright Phuket News 2019-12-15

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Sad.

They failed to use the "buddy" system.

Once again the same old reactive comments from the officials who clearly dont give a damn.

It seems to me that the main job of the lifeguards at Karon, generally regarded as Phuket's most dangerous beach, is to blow a whistle to clear people out of the way of the impending parasail take-off or landing!

 

An you can read a lot into that.

 

There's nothing in the article that hasn't been mentioned many times before and it's either ignored or in force for about five minutes before it's all back to normal.

I wonder if they were wearing life jackets? That would have kept them floating anyway. Sad story.

 

On 12/15/2019 at 9:47 AM, neeray said:

Sad.

They failed to use the "buddy" system.

This couple probably went to the South side of the island, Ko-mon on their own. From the map it is only 250 meters off shore. So they were separated. Then offshore winds blew them into a fast moving outgoing  tidal current. Any where there are constriction points such as islands and the nearby cape the velocity of the water flow increases. Simply : Q=vA . Q is fluid flux, A is area. Can any locals who have kayaked in that area shed any more light on this unusual tragedy? 

21 hours ago, Cereal said:

I wonder if they were wearing life jackets? That would have kept them floating anyway. Sad story.

 

Yes they where, according to the pictures with the article.
The fact that they are nowhere to be found, and also no kayak or vests have been found, is mind boggling. Especially because they called their friends to report that they couldn't make it back with the kayak. At that time, they couldn't possibly have been away that far. A rescue should have been easy at that time.



 

I found a similar story that happened in Maleisia.

A couple that were kayaking around an island offshore,  drifted away from the other kayakers and went missing. The woman's body was found dead by a fisherman, floating in her life vest 185km from where they went missing!! The husband was never found.
So currents can indeed take someone far away!

https://www.asiaone.com/singapore/missing-kayakers-search-continues-man-woman-confirmed-dead
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/missing-singaporean-kayaker-tan-eng-soon-malaysia-family-sea-11822690

Edited December 17, 20196 yr by freestyle

9 hours ago, freestyle said:

Yes they where, according to the pictures with the article.
The fact that they are nowhere to be found, and also no kayak or vests have been found, is mind boggling. Especially because they called their friends to report that they couldn't make it back with the kayak. At that time, they couldn't possibly have been away that far. A rescue should have been easy at that time.



 

Their distress call was at 1830 so any search would have been after dark. Only if they had flares would it have been easy rescue. 

 

10 hours ago, morrobay said:

Their distress call was at 1830 so any search would have been after dark. Only if they had flares would it have been easy rescue. 

 

He had his mobile, and every modern mobile has a bright LED light function.
It's no flare but it's surely visible.

It being dark is no reason to not go and look for someone in immediate distress.
It does not take much time to jump in a motor boat and scout an area of a few 100 meters, right?

Anyone knows if there was a search right after the distress call?

 

 

 

Edited December 17, 20196 yr by freestyle

Of course they might have turned over at a certain point.
I never considered this when renting an ocean kayak, but when you run into high waves, and you turn over, it's almost impossible te re-enter if you're not experienced and don't have any tools:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piv3-_fLXVI

They didn't have the tools in the video (you don't get these when renting on a thai beach), and they were in a sea that was getting rough/wavy.

So if they turned over, they probably never made back inside the kayak.
With 2 unexperienced people it gets even harder, they would pull each other out of balance continuously and turn over again on reentering.
I can image they might have struggled for a long time until completely exhausted.

 

 

Edited December 17, 20196 yr by freestyle

2 hours ago, freestyle said:

He had his mobile, and every modern mobile has a bright LED light function.
It's no flare but it's surely visible.

It being dark is no reason to not go and look for someone in immediate distress.
It does not take much time to jump in a motor boat and scout an area of a few 100 meters, right?

Anyone knows if there was a search right after the distress call?

 

 

 

Yes there was an immediate search until midnight: See original post ' Polish tourist and Thai female remain missing... Dec 9. I didn't mean to imply that since it was dark not to launch SAR. ( I know about that, 4 years U.S. Coast Guard. Search and Rescue. Yes if they turned over that would explain why they did not continue to make phone calls or send light signals. 

1 hour ago, morrobay said:

Yes there was an immediate search until midnight: See original post ' Polish tourist and Thai female remain missing...

Alright... i see it now.
At least that's comforting, to hear that immediate rescue effort was made.
 

6 hours ago, freestyle said:

He had his mobile, and every modern mobile has a bright LED light function.
It's no flare but it's surely visible.

It being dark is no reason to not go and look for someone in immediate distress.
It does not take much time to jump in a motor boat and scout an area of a few 100 meters, right?

Anyone knows if there was a search right after the distress call?

 

 

 

As you already know there was a search done straight away, but I don't know how intensive it was. But you mention 'a few hundred meters', with currents that could easily be a lot more. And by now they can be anywhere, as I said earlier including India.

 

I don't think we'll ever find out, sadly enough for them.

9 hours ago, stevenl said:

As you already know there was a search done straight away, but I don't know how intensive it was. But you mention 'a few hundred meters', with currents that could easily be a lot more. And by now they can be anywhere, as I said earlier including India.

 

I don't think we'll ever find out, sadly enough for them.

With a few 100 meters, i meant the "immediate" search.
I am well aware that after 1 day they might already be far far away!! (see my other post where in a similar case a body was found 185km further)

 

People should be made more aware about currents/dangers when renting a kayak in Thailand.

As a city boy I never knew about currents when i first rented a kayak, and i guess i was lucky to not have an accident. It was in Ko samet, and I went pretty far in the ocean (route 1), put my kayak on a steap small island rock that was sticking out in the ocean, and even swam around the complete rock (being stung by a school of little fish and cutting my toes open when trying to get back on the rock).
In hindseight this was incredibly stupid of me being inexperienced.
No heavy currents, but i did experience noticably more resistance when going back to shore. By then it was also more wavy.

On a later holiday i wanted to go to the south mini island (route 2), but my instincts stopped me, thinking there might be a strong flow of water between the two. (by that time i had a vague idea about currents)
As I understand from morrobay's theory now, this might indeed be right.

 

Edited December 18, 20196 yr by freestyle

17 hours ago, freestyle said:

People should be made more aware about currents/dangers when renting a kayak in Thailand.

As I understand from morrobay's theory now, this might indeed be right.

 

 

 

Indeed currents have taken many people in Thai waters. That includes scuba divers getting swept away. 

Also see sections : Is there another formula for Volume flow. and :

What is the equation of continuity, last paragraph 

 https://www.khanacademy.org/science/physics/fluids/fluid-dynamics/a/what-is-volume-flow-rate

Edited December 19, 20196 yr by morrobay