Zuck’s PR Miss Is Alaska Cruise Line’s Gain

Meta Magnate’s Skipper and Crew ‘Didn’t Hear’ Radio Distress Call

Janice Anne Wheeler Aug 11   ∙   Guest post

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The author writes her own Substack called Sparring with Mother Nature. about refitting and cruising aboard Steadfast, a 56-foot classic wooden sailing yacht designed by William Hand.

I’m not sure there’s a more firm and fabled rule on the seas than assist when able.

Whether you’re a pirate or a billionaire, there is no more common denominator than helping others in distress at sea. You are not obligated if said action is going to endanger your own vessel and crew, but that wasn’t the case on August 3, when it appears that Mark Zuckerberg’s 387-foot megayacht inexplicably and blatantly did not assist a 21-foot skiff with two women, one child and a dog aboard.

To be clear, Zuckerberg and his family were not aboard at the time of the incident.

According to The Guardian’s Eric Berger, calls for assistance began around 9:32 p.m. local time; the skiff had run out of fuel. When you run out of fuel on a power vessel, it is not maneuverable; you cannot go where you need to go to keep yourself and those aboard safe.

Also consider the time of day; darkness was approaching in Alaska. The 2024 superyacht Launchpad, with its $390 million-plus pricetag, was clearly the closest and seemingly the best equipped to assist in any given situation, according to episode 632 of Super Yacht News, which offers a detailed account.

Most major networks ran at least one story followed up with a secondary explanation from Zuckerberg spokesperson Brian Baker that the Launchpad captain and crew had not heard the ongoing, lengthy, pertinent communications with the vessel in distress nor the U.S. Coast Guard hailing their own vessel “multiple times.”

Several articles, including NBC News, stated that Launchpad had “declined” to answer the call to assist. Is that the polite way of saying that the hail was ignored with no regard for the potential consequences? Or is this a case of the wealthy opting out on the rules of the sea?

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The call was answered by the 1984 cruise vessel Wilderness Legacy, which was farther away than Launchpad, underway to its next port of call in the opposite direction and with guests aboard. Wilderness Legacy is a small ship (192 feet), operated by Uncruise Adventures. Her captain reportedly had to maneuver around Launchpad to assist the drifting skiff and tow it to a fuel dock.

This incident was determined by the Coast Guard not to be an emergency distress situation, relieving Zuckerberg’s crew of a legal conundrum. What remains, however, a moral, seafaring and human obligation to do what is right when someone needs help.

Launchpad has a “support vessel” named Wingman, which itself is a stunning 262-foot, $90 million motor vessel with facilities such as a helipad and a basketball court. Launchpad also transports a 32-foot tender, two crew tenders and a “watersports ski boat,” all probably larger than the boat in trouble.

U.S. Code of Federal Regulations mandate that all vessels as big as Zuckerberg’s carry VHF radios. A safe guess is that his 2024 megayacht carries more than one in multiple control rooms as well as two on the bridge. Launchpad was underway, and all conversations took place on Channel 16—the channel that CFR mandates is monitored.

So if not having heard the distress call is the best excuse the PR team at Meta can come up with, it’s not good enough for this sailor, who requested to write this article for Loose Cannon after seeing this incident on NBC News. Please take into account that while running out of fuel could be considered the fault of the operator, fault does not relieve any other seafarer of the obligation to assist.

Hero and Zeros

Radio Rescue Story

Allow me to tell you why this story struck a chord. In 2022 my sailing yacht Steadfast was anchored solo in Allan’s Pensacola Cay, Northern Abaco, Bahamas. A winter storm was forecast and sorely underestimated; It blew in with a fury; temperatures dropped.

We live aboard and always monitor VHF, underway or not. Midday we heard a very faint distress call and answered. A couple on a portable VHF had anchored outside Foxtown, a small settlement about nine miles away. Their sailboat was rocking so wildly that they made the questionable decision to leave the vessel and go into town in their inflatable dinghy.

They had been blown onto a sharp coral island outside Foxtown and were stranded with no water, shelter, food, or protective clothing. The best part of their plan had been to take the radio, which was low on battery, and we soon lost contact. Our boat has too deep a draft to get anywhere near their location and we would have truly been endangering ourselves in such conditions.

Next best thing, call someone who is able to assist. In the Bahamas, it is BASRA (Bahamas Air Sea Rescue Association). Utilizing VHF radio and our cell phones, we reached a very concerned BASRA officer who was unfortunately in Nassau, more than 140 miles distant; he informed us matter-of-factly there were no officers “way up there.”

Here’s where it actually gets interesting. My fellow sailor grew up in this region and we’d been sailing as a pair for three winters. We stop at every island and meet true local characters.

Drafted for a Coast Guard Rescue Peter Swanson   ·   August 6, 2025 Read full story

One of the managers at the private island resort of Spanish Cay, Felix, is a friend of the gentleman who owns the seafood store and other enterprises in Foxtown. We tried our friend at Spanish but he wasn’t there, the person on the phone heard our tale, called him at home. His wife answered, passed the story again, called Felix, who called Foxtown, and that guy was the hero.

He left work, took his powerboat out in gale-force winds and rain, searched for that couple, found them hypothermic, brought them back, fed them in his restaurant and put them up in his four-unit hotel. HERO! We were beside ourselves that we could not just go and help those people. They got lucky, we got back in touch with BASRA, who compensated and congratulated our friend in Foxtown for doing the right thing.

If it has become part of humanity to disregard someone in need of such a simple assist as the one that just occurred in Alaska, what is the world coming to? And does the Golden Rule not apply to the wealthy?

Full disclosure: in the past I’ve padded my pockets with the up-down success of Facebook/Meta and its activities; I hold no grudges against successful people. I may become a little grudgy on anyone who won’t utilize their extensive resources and lavish lifestyle to help a fellow human being.