UPDATE: Coast Guard suspends search for missing boater

PORTSMOUTH, Va. &ampndash The Coast Guard and nearby responders suspended their research Sunday for a guy who went lacking Saturday right after sailing from Western Branch Diesel right here on his way to Very first Landing State Park in Virginia Beach.

Coast Guard Sector Hampton Roads watchstanders were notified at roughly seven:thirty a.m. by a caller from Previous Point Comfort and ease Marina in Hampton that a very good Samaritan learned a 28-foot sailing vessel adrift near the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel in the vicinity of Willoughby Bay.

Coast Guard crews aboard an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter from Air Station Elizabeth Town, N.C., Coast Guard Cutter Ibis, and from Coast Guard station Portsmouth have been launched to search. Members of the Virginia Marine Police, Virginia Division of Game and Inland Fisheries, Portsmouth Fire Division, Newport News Fire Division, Norfolk Police Department, Hampton Fire Division and the Navy Sewell’s Position Harbor Patrol searched for Jeff Harwood for about 16.5 hours in an area of about 465 miles.

Harwood had filed a float strategy and intended to sail from Western Branch Diesel right here and arrive at Initial Landing State Park in Virginia Seaside at about 9 a.m. Saturday.

Everyone with information regarding the case is asked to contact Sector Hampton Roads at 757-638-6637.

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