Some of you were following the story about the passing of Richard Byhre. I found out what happened this afternoon and thought I would pass it on. I was talking to a friend who has his boat three or four slips over from Richards and was involved to some degree. It seems that Richard, who was indeed the author some asked about, came down to his boat on a Thursday a few weeks ago and went for a sail. He left his shoes on the dock as if he had stepped out of them and into his boat shoes. His dock lines were left still tied to the cleats and his electrical cord was still plugged in and on the dock as well. My friend noticed the boat gone but only thought that he had gone for a day sail in the bay. His pattern was to leave his home in Palm Springs, drive to the boat, day sail the bay for a week and then his wife would drive down and they would both sail and stay on the boat for a second week. Richard was 75 years old and hard of hearing so it was not usual that he and his wife wouldn't talk on the phone for the week he was down. Apparently his hearing aids weren't compatible with a cell phone. To digress a bit, Richard came over to my friends boat several weeks ago to say hello and it was noticed by Lew that he was, in Lew's words, "doing the 75 year old man's shuffle" as he walked so it seems that he might not have been very stable on a rocking boat. In any event, Lew was in the bar at the club on the following Sunday night about 10PM when Richards wife came in with a girl friend and set at the bar and Lew overheard the conversation between the two. Richard's wife was saying that she didn't understand why the boat wasn't in the slip as she had expected a was concerned because her husband wasn't around waiting for her. Lew stepped in to say that the boat had been out of the slip for thee past 9 days and he had thought that they had both gone over to Catalina Island for a couple of weeks. They immediately contacted the CG but after 9 days where was the CG going to look? A Catalina 28 probably has a 20 gallon fuel tank with a range of, what, 120 miles. Add to that another day until the batteries go flat and the low amp draw auto pilot shuts off. That's another 24 hours at 6 knots. Let's call it 140 miles. That's 260 miles. If the auto pilot stopped working and locked the wheel on a nice beam reach for the other 6 days that another 850 miles so were well over a thousand mile radius. If Richard slipped and fell down below some Japanese fishing boat may well find him doing donuts half way to Hawaii in a few months. We may just find the boat. In any event, it's a sad deal for his wife. If he took his own life he should have left a note in his shoe or something. The odd thing is that he always sailed in the bay but this time he decided to sail off shore. Why the change? That leads some to think that he may well have done himself in. Not a bad way to go for a sailor who knows his days are numbered but not so nice for his wife. I believe that he either fell overboard or fell and hurt himself down below. If that was the case it could have been a long time dying. What ever happened, I hope it was quick.