The 63-year-old computer specialist sailed out of San Francisco Bay to scatter his late mother's ashes in the sea near the Farallon Islands. He has been missing since then.
His wife reported him missing when he did not return home on the evening of January 28. The American Coast Guard has searched in vain for him and his 40-foot long, red-painted yacht.
Because the state institutions could not find him despite an extensive search by boat and plane, colleagues and friends of the widely popular software developer started looking. Google co-founder Sergey Brin made satellite images available on his internet platform Google Earth.
Employees of the Nasa Institute Ames in Silicon Valley also helped by sending an airplane with special cameras on its way. And the FirmAmazon uploaded thousands of satellite images to a website that friends and volunteers searched for the missing ship and its skipper.
"This is the largest private search I've ever seen," said David Swatland, chief of the San Francisco Coast Guard. Unfortunately, however, it has so far been unsuccessful.