THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 8, 1996 TAG: 9610080293
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: 63 lines
Helicopters and rescue boats seeking them in the dark, two teen-age boys floundered for hours in a 14-foot canoe Sunday before they called home - from a pizza parlor.
Overcome by wind and currents, they drifted through a main shipping channel, worried that they'd be unseen in the darkness. They tried flagging down another boat by setting a T-shirt on fire, but got no response. They hailed a passing sailboat, only to discover that no one was aboard; its owner apparently had been knocked overboard but was later found safe.
Once they drifted ashore on Craney Island in Portsmouth, the boys lighted a fire to keep warm. They eventually hiked inland, finding a pizza shop in Churchland.
The pair, Walter J. Smith, 14, and James Weguespack, 15, both from Norfolk's Willoughby neighborhood, had been reported overdue about 7:45 p.m.
They had left Willoughby Spit on a fishing trip at 1 p.m. and were due back at 5. They had been told by their parents not to leave Willoughby Bay, the mile-wide, oval body of water bounded by the spit, Norfolk Naval Base and, to the west, the busy waters of Hampton Roads.
But they paddled toward a flock of gulls near the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, thinking there might be bluefish nearby, said Weguespack, a student at Granby High School.
``We didn't realize we were drifting so much,'' he said. ``We tried to fight the current, but it was too strong.''
The water and brisk northeast winds pushed the canoe southward nearly five miles, past the Norfolk Naval Station piers and across the mouth of the Elizabeth River. The northern tip of Craney Island, actually a man-made peninsula formed by dredge spoils, loomed ahead.
By that time, two Army helicopters from Fort Bragg, N.C., a Coast Guard helicopter from Elizabeth City and other Coast Guard and Navy boats had taken up the search. They scoured the waters from the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel to the Monitor-Merrimac Bridge-Tunnel, which spans the James River's mouth miles away.
Both boys wore life jackets and had some fresh water, said Weguespack. But the conditions, and the darkness, worried them. ``We just wanted to get ashore where we knew we'd be safe,'' he said Monday from his home, where he was allowed to miss school for the day.
They came ashore on Craney Island, where they tied the canoe to a rock, lit a fire to keep warm and later decided to walk inland.
``I bet we walked 10 miles,'' said Weguespack. ``At least, it seemed that far.''
When they emerged from the woods, they found a Chanello's Pizza parlor in Churchland.
``They let us use their phone, gave us a pizza and some sodas,'' Weguespack said. ``They were really good to us.''
The Coast Guard called off the search at 10:40 p.m. and picked up the boys, taking them to the nearby Coast Guard station.
Weguespack said he will never get in that kind of jam again, at least not in such a small boat.
The canoe broke loose and apparently remains adrift. Weguespack would like to get it back. He had borrowed it from a friend. ILLUSTRATION: VP Map
KEYWORDS: RESCUE by CNB