08:14 PM EDT on Wednesday, May 9, 2007

By Kate Bramson and Michael P. McKinney
projo.com staff writers

Cumberland High School and University of Rhode Island graduate Christine Grinavic expected to be home for Mother’s Day.

Her parents, Mary and James Grinavic of Cumberland, are now fielding calls from the U.S. Coast Guard as the guard searches the waters off the North Carolina coast.

Photo: Christine Grinavic
Courtesy of Grinavic family

The Grinavics' daughter was one of four sailors with Rhode Island ties aboard the 54-foot Flying Colours. The boat put out an emergency radio beacon at 3:30 a.m. Monday.

Mary Grinavic said this morning that her daugher, 26, has worked as a crew member for a couple of years on the Arabella, a luxury yacht based in Newport, which spends its winters in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. She ordinarily would have sailed home on the Arabella.

But this season, she signed on to bring Flying Colours to Annapolis, Md. She left Monday, April 30, on the 9-to-10-day trip. Her mother said she has friends in Maryland and thought this trip was a good opportunity to visit with them before heading back to Rhode Island for Mother's Day.

She expected to have docked in Annapolis yesterday or today. The Coast Guard called her home in Cumberland yesterday morning around 10, reporting that her boat was missing, her mother said.

The Coast Guard has identified the missing sailors as: Patrick Topping, 39, the master of the ship; Jason Franks, 34; Rhiannon Borisoff, 22; and Grinavic. Topping and Franks have captain's licenses.

Franks has many years of sailing experience and is the captain of the Adventuress, an 85-foot wooden charter sailboat based in Newport, said his mother, Carol Dale of North Kingstown. He lives in a Newport apartment, she said.

Kip Wadlow, a spokesman for the Coast Guard's Fifth District, located in Portsmouth, Va., said the guard has been searching since early Monday morning for the boat.

The Grinavic family has been in touch with the other families. Topping has family in Newport, and Borisoff's father spends summers in Newport.

“What we’re doing right now is calling congressmen to make sure they [The Coast Guard] keep the search up,” Dale said.

Particularly since the weather was so rough during the first two days of the search and today is the first day they’ve been able to conduct a thorough search, the families believe the Coast Guard shouldn’t give up, Dale said.

Weather has been particularly rough off the North Carolina coast, Wadlow said. The storm created seas in excess of 30 feet on Monday and the Coast Guard said its helicopters rescued nine people from three sailboats.

Wadlow said the Coast Guard is also searching ports along the coast to see if the Flying Colours may have taken shelter. The Coast Guard has not found signs that the vessel was damaged or sank.

A Coast Guard C-130 airplane has been searching a 100-square-mile area, and the Coast Guard Cutter Tampa battled heavy seas to join the search.

The electronic distress signal stopped at about 4 p.m. It is possible that the crew pulled Flying Colours into port and turned off the distress signal, the Coast Guard said in a news release.

Mary Grinavic said she has learned a lot since yesterday morning about emergency signals on boats. As she understands it, the emergency signal would have to be turned off manually for it to go off at 4 p.m. -- or the boat could have capsized and sunk so deep that the signal from the emergency beacon was lost.

After the signal turned off, it came back on again and then turned off once more, the Coast Guard told her. With that information, they're questioning whether the boat has lost radio contact, perhaps because an antenna for the radio has broken off, she said.

The last she spoke with a Coast Guard official -- sometime after 10 this morning -- he said they hadn't seen any debris. They're continuing to search with boats, airplanes and helicopters this morning, and they've scheduled a search for this afternoon around 3, knowing that the current searchers will need to refuel before then, she said.

"He said today is the best day for visibility and he's hoping they'll find something," she said. "Up until now, with the storm, visibility was not good."

Now, the waves are just two to four feet high or so, she said the Coast Guard reported.

A crew member from the Arabella has told Mary Grinavic it's possible the mast on the boat has broken and they've lost all communication, electricity and radar. They do have plenty of provisions -- food and water beyond what would have been needed for the trip in normal conditions, she said.

“The people have told me from the Arabella, as well as the owner of the boat [Flying Colours] that [the captain is] very cautious, very safety cautious,” Grinavic said. “He has a lot of experience.”

“Christine – she’s a smart girl, she’s good in an emergency,” her mother said. “And Rhiannon has worked on boats as well, so it’s not like they were just out for a weekend cruise.”

Christine Grinavic is a writer with some of her essays published in The Providence Journal. She graduated from the University of Rhode Island with a degree in English. She studied abroad in New Zealand and has traveled to Israel and elsewhere, her mother said.

"I want her to come home and write a big story about this," Mary Grinavic said.