{"id":809594,"date":"2026-08-11T02:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T02:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/809594\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T02:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T02:40:10","slug":"zuckerberg-spokesperson-says-his-yacht-did-not-hear-call-for-maritime-assist-from-skiff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/809594\/","title":{"rendered":"Zuckerberg spokesperson says his yacht did not hear call for maritime assist from skiff"},"content":{"rendered":"

A yacht owned by Mark Zuckerberg<\/a> didn\u2019t respond immediately to a call for help from a skiff that ran out of fuel off the coast of Alaska, but a maritime law expert said Monday the crew may not have been obligated to after the Coast Guard determined the boat wasn\u2019t in distress. <\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the Meta CEO<\/a> also said the crew didn\u2019t immediately hear the radio call for help and by the time it did, another nearby ship had already rendered assistance.<\/p>\n

The Aug. 3 incident gained attention in recent days after a passenger on the cruise ship posted on social media that the captain had said Zuckerberg\u2019s yacht \u201crefused\u201d to respond.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Coast Guard said the 21-foot Hewescraft vessel first hailed it for assistance at approximately 9:32 p.m., using a radio frequency all boats are expected to monitor. About 25 minutes later, the Coast Guard determined the vessel was not in distress and issued an assistance request. The skiff was able to make it safely to Farragut Bay after the Wilderness Legacy cruise ship towed it there, and helped it refuel.<\/p>\n

When another ship is in distress, everyone in the area is obligated to respond as long as doing so doesn\u2019t put their own ship at risk. But maritime law expert Ian Ralby said this situation appears different, and the crew of Zuckerberg\u2019s yacht wouldn\u2019t face that legal obligation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the difference between calling AAA and 911. You need an ambulance on site, that\u2019s a distress call. You need somebody to give you a jump or to tow your car, you call AAA,\u201d said Ralby, who is president of the nonprofit Auxilium Worldwide that focuses on promoting sustainable development and ocean governance, among other goals. It is a big difference in terms of the emergency type, he said. \u201cBoth concerning, both needing assistance, but the legal obligations to respond are very different.\u201d<\/p>\n

No obligation to help a ship that ran out of gas<\/p>\n

Zuckerberg and his family were not on the 387-foot Launchpad yacht when this happened, according to his spokesperson, who didn\u2019t specify what the yacht was doing at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the Coast Guard noted, the boat was not in distress, and by the time the crew reviewed the Coast Guard contact on a different radio channel from the one they were operating on, the assist was already underway. We\u2019re grateful all parties are safe,\u201d Zuckerberg\u2019s spokesman Brian Baker said.<\/p>\n

Coast Guard veteran Aaron Davenport, who spent three decades with the branch of the military responsible for rescues on the water, said running out of gas simply isn\u2019t considered an emergency, and the Launchpad wasn\u2019t obligated to help. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf Zuckerberg\u2019s ship is there and this vessel just ran out of fuel, they\u2019re under no obligation whatsoever to assist them. Zero,\u201d Davenport said. \u201cIs it that common courtesy to help other mariners out? Yes, because someday you\u2019re going to need assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Coast Guard also isn\u2019t going to automatically deploy ships when a ship runs out of gas, but Davenport said that in the harsh environment of Alaska a ship that ran out of gas could become an emergency if it drifts into some rocks or a storm is brewing. The fact that this cruise ship responded saved the Coast Guard a trip.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlaska is a remote place so it could easily go from non-emergency to emergency and very quickly,\u201d said Davenport, who worked as a consultant on security and maritime issues for several years before retiring. <\/p>\n

Cruise ship passenger\u2019s post drew attention to this incident<\/p>\n

The Alaska Beacon first reported on what happened after Michael Love, who said he was a passenger on the Wilderness Legacy cruise ship, posted on Bluesky on Aug. 5.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur boat rescued a stranded vessel last night and apparently we did that after the Coast Guard radioed Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s yacht<\/a> \u2014 which was closer \u2014 and they repeatedly refused to respond. (There was near unanimous booing<\/a> when the captain announced this),\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

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Coast Guard determined the skiff wasn\u2019t in distress<\/p>\n

The Coast Guard said in a statement that they determined within half an hour of when the skiff radioed in that the small ship wasn\u2019t in distress. A marine assistance request was broadcast on their behalf, and the Wilderness Legacy responded, reaching the 21-foot vessel about an hour later. <\/p>\n

Ralby said it\u2019s a little unusual that the Launchpad crew missed the call for help because it is common practice for ships to always be monitoring channel 16 on their radios and keep it as the default frequency to hear any distress calls or emergency notices. But typically the Coast Guard tries to keep channel 16 as free as possible so they might announce an emergency on that channel and ask anyone who can help to switch to a different channel to hear the details. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe situation was resolved without any harm to life,\u201d said Ralby, who is a maritime lawyer with experience in more than 100 countries. \u201cIt does not seem that there was any immediate issue in terms of threat to life of mariners or concerns for the marine environment, which are the two main things that lead to that urgent distress call where all mariners no matter who they are legally obligated to try and respond.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A yacht owned by Mark Zuckerberg didn\u2019t respond immediately to a call for help from a skiff that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[207835,14892,3292,22758,343628,28,793,343626,851,12424,10815,1683,343627,795],"class_list":["post-809594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-aaron-davenport","tag-ak-state-wire","tag-alaska","tag-american-automobile-association","tag-brian-baker","tag-business","tag-general-news","tag-ian-ralby","tag-inc","tag-mark-zuckerberg","tag-media","tag-meta-platforms","tag-michael-love","tag-u-s-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}