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Cape Town - After months of assisting in the search for three South Africans who went missing at sea while on a catamaran delivery mission, satellite crowd sourcing platform, Tomnod has pulled out.
Anthony Murray, Reginald Robertson and Jaryd Payne were reported missing by their families, when they disappeared from radars on 18 January after failing to reach their destination in Phuket, Thailand.
The three men left Cape Town on 14 December to deliver the Sunsail RC044-978 catamaran they were sailing to its new owners in Phuket.
Shortly after they were reported missing, family members launched a satellite search using the crowd sourcing platform Tomnod as well as a Facecbook page called 'Searching for Anthony, Reg and Jaryd.'
In March this year, a promising Tomnod pin from one of the many civilians across the world taking part, raised the hopes of the three men's family and friends, however, it soon turned out that the search would have to continue.
In a statement on their site, Tomnod said 'unfortunately, search and rescue efforts to date have been unsuccessful and on May 5th, 2015 Tomnod and DigitalGlobe will stop tasking for new imagery and bring the campaign to a close.'
The campaign attracted over 20 800 who mapped an area of 12 788 square kilometers—100% of the uploaded search area—in search of the missing catamaran.
The crowd sourcing platform had been working hand-in-hand with search and rescue crews, constantly updating satellite tasking requests and adding new imagery to the Tomnod platform.
Tomnod said that even though they will be turning their attention to the aftermath of the Nepali earthquakes, they will continue to analyze any remaining crowd points from the campaign on an ad-hoc basis.
Payne's family responded to the news on the Facebook group, saying:
"We will continue searching, even if not on Tomnod and promise to keep you all informed. Any ideas from our followers as to alternative methods to keep our search alive will be accepted with open arms. We will not give up on OUR BOYS and we must keep our hope and faith alive and strong at all times and we will find them. Thank you again and again. The family."
