Schooner NINA Search Update

 

Houston a/k/a Space City U.S.A. August 28, 2013 --- The five (5) families of the Nina 7 and volunteers with Texas EquuSearch continue to search for the schooner Nina on new satellite images over the Tasman Sea. Some of these images are being analyzed by online volunteers through Tomnod, a DigitalGlobe crowdsourcing website, and some are being analyzed and interpreted by citizen-volunteer specialists using advanced GIS workstations and ‘on their own personal time.’

Texas EquuSearch through its volunteers has the ability to access images much faster using proprietary means than through the more common speed-and-bandwidth limited internet system. By engaging support from thousands of online contributors, Tomnod allows the families and Texas EquuSearch advisors to search through huge amounts of satellite images much faster than any individual could alone. Tomnod's results are immediately posted to the families and friends coordinating the search and rescue efforts. The results are a team effort of collaboration to locate the schooner Nina and its crew of 7.

The visual air search using local Aussie and Kiwi aircraft will begin again as soon as a satellite image shows the search teams a ‘lead’ as to where to look; one object “Object-A” is being relocated by more recent satellite imagery. The selected  primary search areas are near Norfolk Island, the last place that Object-A was sighted by the satellite. After the volunteers identify a good ‘lead’ then an updated ocean current and surface winds model is calculated to track the objects movement: all Objects are drifting and moving with the surface ocean current and surface winds. A second local search area is surrounding Middleton Reef which shall be revisited. 

Frustrating to the families is the outrageous fact that there has been no assistance or resources received or offered from the U. S. military or the U. S. Department of State. Friends and family and constituents of their home states are disappointed with Secretary of State John Kerry for his mishandling the numerous requests that the families and volunteers have made for immediate assistance from Sec. Kerry’s office. 

Source: Texas EquuSearch Search and Recovery Team, Ralph Baird, Senior Advisor

 

http://sailingsavoirfaire.blogspot.com/2013/08/baird-asks-americans-to-call-state.html

   

 

 

For a list of donors to the Texas EquuSearch (TES) SV Nina Fund, please scroll down to the bottom of this page. If you contributed even one dollar and your name does not appear on this updates page, (or if you want to be unidentified and listed as anonymous) then please contact TES at their headquarters, contacts at www.TXEQ.org

Thank you: we still need help.

You, yes you, can help !

   



  Click to view tomnod PDF file

Above: Friday morning Houston. Air search offshore Norfolk Island.

Above: 23-Aug: Search Area added above: SA-908 which is the northern most. 

POSSIBLE LIFE RAFT     Left map: this is our second target location.

         CLICK TO ENLARGE THESE MAPS.                   

Right map: yellow area is TES and red area is RCCNZ.

                 

 

Five (5) families supporting the visual air search for seven (7) on the Nina, August 18, 2013:

       

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Ralph,

From Guy 5 Mins sago. (Friday afternoon Houston, Sat. morning Lord Howe Island)

Perfect Day here not a breath of wind and swells only 2 meters should be a perfect day for looking

Regards,

GUY STEVENSON

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Below: Results to date of tasked Digital Globe/tomnod satellite tags (on left, SA-002) and complted KiWi Air visual air search sorties over SA-707 (on middle right).

End of day Friday NZ: "Due to high winds in the Lord Howe Island this afternoons flight has been cancelled," John Funnell, NZ.

NATIONAL PRESS/EquuSearch/families press event in Lafayette, LA at 2:00PM CDT Thursday, August 15, 2013 at Home Bank, Lafayette:

Back Flying, departed Lord Howe Island, 12:15 UTC (7:15PM CDT)

This update 16:50 UTC (11:50 CDT Houston/Lafayette)

We, the families, with Texas EquuSearch's help, are in the air searching for the schooner NINA, 9:36PM Tuesday Houston local time which is 2:36PM the next day, Wednesday in the Tasman Sea, off New Zealand: 

The above is our F406 ZK-XLF.

 How you can help:

1.    Contact www.TXEQ.org  if you have something useful or useful information to help; your call will be returned; state Nina Search when you call.

2.    Logon to http://tomnod.com/nod/challenge/ninarescue2

3.    Call the U. S. Department of State (DoS) (202) 647-4000 and ask them what they are doing to help save these 7 lives.

"Hi, my name is ___________________ and I am calling to ask Secretary of State John Kerry to support the search for the schooner Nina and bring the seven sailors home." 

 

Every call counts.  Every second call counts again.  Every third call counts three times.  Every fourth call counts four times!

 

What the schooner S/V Nina will look like on Tomnod/DigitalGlobe:

                                                                

What a larger freighter ship looks like on Tomnod/DigitalGlobe:

Screenshot of DigitalGlobe satellite coverage over the search area since August 1:

TES NINA Search Fund began air search #14 on August 14, 2013, Wednesday, local NZ time:

11:48am local time New Zealand

 

All we want is to save 7 lives. The blanks above (to be reported to you soon) were asked for clearly of the NZ government agencies and very clearly of the US government agencies. AUS authorities pointed their fingers to NZ and to the U. S. Department od State (DoS) to supply. We shall report on these five (5) requests tonight and tell you how much trouble it was and still is to deal with a very unfriendly, uncooperative, manipulative and bad government made up of staff employees and controlled by our elected so-called-qualified-leaders.

Updated Search Area SA-707-01:

Newly Tasked Privately Funded Air Search Areas for the Schooner S/V Nina and its Crew of 7

Yellow SA-002 and Red SA-203 were searched. NZ North Island west coast was also searched. PINK SA-903 and Dark BLUE SA-707 are next. The last known radio and GPS position (LKP) of the S/V Nina is shown on this map as the white five-pointed star: Latitide 33-53 S, Longitude 165-18 E.

POSSIBLE New Information to save 7 lives:

(Wrong starting point -LKP- is shown:)

(Correct starting point is to the West !)

 

Lockheed Martin Orion P3's in New Zealand - American and Israeli technology - Get Back to Work Searching: WHY NOT? Ask the U. S. Department of State, "Why not?"



The new generation of the Israeli Elta EL/M-2022A[V]3 multi-mode airborne maritime surveillance radar incorporates advanced features based on ELTA's 30 years of experience as a leader in the field of military radars, and is Improved by operational feedback from real missions.

 

TEXAS EQUUSEARCH AND Collaboration with SAR TECHNOLOGY- DRONES, SATELLITES

American volunteers using their skills to locate missing loved ones (Help Us Help Them):

 

 

AIR SEARCH PERFORMED OVER WESTERN SHORES OF THE NORTHERN ISLAND, NZ

August 6, 2013 HOUSTON TEXAS SPACE CITY U.S.A.   --- Today, Laszlo Nemeth (son of missing experienced sailor Evi Nemeth from CU, Boulder, Colorado) hired a private aircraft and conducted a visual air search covering the western shorelines of the northern island of New Zealand. Map:

SEVEN (7) SAILORS ARE ALIVE, LOST AND WAITING

August 6, 2013 HOUSTON TEXAS SPACE CITY U.S.A.   ---   At 8:30AM this past Monday morning, the U. S. Department of State (US DoS), was given a map which they requested from two of the five families that they contacted on Friday. Senator Corker (TN) has promised the two families to have the NGA, the US National Geospatial-intelligence Agency, task its satellites to this area of high probability for the schooner Nina and its crew of who are 7 alive and surviving. The five families of the seven missing loved ones and their volunteer advisors Texas EquuSearch are waiting for the results.  A simplified version of the map is below:

 

NEW DATA AND RESULTS SUBMITTED TO THE NEW ZEALAND RCC TO JUSTIFY SEARCH RESUMPTION

August 4, 2013 HOUSTON TEXAS U.S.A.  --- Texas EquuSearch received new analysis and new results from new software developed by ASA, the defense contractor to the US government and the developer of the search and rescue and ocean drift analysis software. The results show that the SV Nina is most likely in the updated and new SAD (Search Area Determination). See below. The turn around speed of the computer drift modeling analysis was also improved from six hours to less than 30 minutes on a more advanced computer system than was previously used for this purpose. Thank you CRyanB, JB and FM.

Ships previously lost drifted west:

 

 

NEW SEARCH AREA REFINED FOR SCHOONER S/V NINA AND 7 SAILORS

August 1, 2013 Houston Texas U.S.A.   ---   New area to search shown below as SA-701 (scroll down to SA-701). This primary search area was identified from a professional oceanographer's review and re-interpretation of the surface current and surface wind drift models provided by RCCNZ to Texas EquuSearch.

 

NEWLY REFINED OCEAN DRIFT MODEL - NEW INFORMATION 

THE Schooner S/V NINA AND 7 CREW STORY

June 4, 2013 01:00Z HYCOM/APASA .nc FILE PLOT: 

August 1, 2013 --- Proposed Schooner NINA Privately Funded Search Area SA-701

August 3, 2013 --- NEW INFORMATION FOR NEW SEARCHES FOR THE SV NINA AND ITS CREW OF 7:

August 4, 2103 --- New Search Area and Old Search Areas:

Yellow Search Areas are SA-002, SA-203, Tomnod Proposed Crowd Satellite Search; White is proposed and latest SA-701 and others are NZ RAF Original Searches by long range radar:

Photos taken during privately funded visual air search of SA-002 and SA-203