The Boat That Never Left: 37 Phantom Miles and a Silent Harbor

The Boat That Never Left: 37 Phantom Miles and a Silent Harbor

Cold impossibility: a 31-foot lobster boat logged a 37-mile GPS track at an average 14 knots the night before it was found tied to the dock with a cold engine and a full fuel tank - so what produced the phantom voyage?

In this episode, we lay out the timeline and evidence around the Elsa June’s impossible GPS record and the four-month documentation that followed, asking whether a failed clock and a saved route on a chartplotter can create a false voyage.

Person: Ralph Rice Date: July 9, 1998 Location: Carver's Reach harbor, mid-coast Maine Device: Garmin chartplotter with an older saved track Event: 37-mile recorded voyage between 9:11 p.m. and 11:49 p.m.

- The Elsa June is a 31-foot Novi-style lobster boat rebuilt in 1993 with a hull speed of 9.5 knots and a top speed around 11 knots. - The chartplotter showed departure at 9:11 p.m., return at 11:49 p.m., and a total distance of 37 miles, averaging about 14 knots. - Ralph Rice fueled the Elsa June at 4:19 p.m. on July 8 with 18 gallons recorded on the receipt and tied her at 4:30 p.m., saying he did not return that night. - Witnesses between 9:00 p.m. and midnight (Debra Hoffman, Steve Bodine, Nina Cho) reported no vessel movement or running lights in the harbor mouth. - The Garmin’s backup battery had failed in spring 1998, causing the device’s internal clock to drift and a saved August 1997 track of about 36.8 miles to remain on the unit.

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