Transcription
Hey everyone, I'm Ashley Banfield and this is Drop Deadad Serious and do I have a treat for you today. If you have been following our coverage on Lynette Hooker who went missing in the Bahamas after her husband says she bounced off the back of the dinghy as they were on their way from the Abico in where they had some drinks out to their livboard yacht where they've been basically sailing for four years.
Um, well, boy, do I have something to show you. I I did not expect that we were going to get this, but we've got an entire tour of the boat top to bottom. Not just what it looks like, the guts, the electronics. This boat is like a computer on the water, like on steroids. This boat from the experts has electronics that most boats do not have. This boat is basically like a forensic tracker. So if something went wrong on board this boat, I don't think that anybody who might be not telling the truth stands a chance to get away with it. And I've already gone on record saying I don't believe Brian Hooker's story that his wife bounced off the dinghy halfway between the Abico Inn and Soulmate, this beautiful boat. I don't believe it, but I can't wait to take you on board this boat.
There's a couple ways I'm going to do this. Number one, uh we have a video we haven't shown you yet of Lynette Hooker's daughter, Carly Ellsworth. Uh she along with her boyfriend, Steve, actually came to the Bahamas, boarded the boat to get some personal effects from mom, her scarves, photo, some things that were precious to her. And Steve was actually like videotaping as they were going through the boat. So, you kind of got a quick look at how Brian and Lynette Hooker were living on board this this boat. Um, but it was hard to kind of see a lot of it, but I want to play that for you now because what I'm going to do is you're going to see the way Brian and Lynette were on board this boat. Then I'm going to take you on a tour inch by inch because I have the video from the dock stepping on board, everything on the deck, everything down below. And there's some fascinating stuff that you are you're going to enjoy.
Now, I mean, honest to God, and the way I know that the boat you're about to see is the boat that belongs to Brian and Lynette Hooker, we double, triple, quadruple, quintuple confirmed it. Number one, the HIN number matches. These are all nautical terms. We've checked this with an expert in boating who has told us the HIN number of Brian and Lynette's boat matches the boat that I'm going to tour you through. Number two, the hull ID, they're the same on both boats. Number three, the call signs are the same on board uh Soulmate, Brian and Lynette's boat, and the boat that I'm going to tour you through. Number four, the MMSI matches. Those numbers also match. Again, I don't know what these are, but they're technical and they matter and they match. But the thing for me, like totally sold me on, oh my god, the boat that we're about to get a tour of is Brian and Annette's boat because there's a doohickey on the bow. That's a technical term for a a an adornment. It there's two dolphins, like a statue of two dolphins a fixed to the front of the bow of Lynette and Brian's boat and the boat I'm about to tour you on. So, five different ways to prove that the boat I'm about to show you is Brian and Lynette's soulmate before it became soulmate before they bought it in Texas. This was the boat. So, I'm going to show that to you in a moment, but first I want you to see um Steve and Carly's video that they gave to us of them boarding soulmate to get mom's personal effects and kind of take a quick look around. Take a look.
You sure there's nothing else up front? You're just looking for little knickknacks, baby. Just >> a bunch of >> Okay. I'm just I'm just looking like any any books or any What about the Bahama thing there? Or the or this? Oh, there you go. I know, baby. I know. I know. Okay. So, clearly Carly is very upset, understandably. I mean, she's trying to get personal effects. It's a bit of a mess on board. They're looking where they can and getting what they can of of Carly's mom's special precious things like her her headscarves. That was important to Carly. And you could see that in Steve's hand. at one point he's holding the collection of of Carly's mom's headscarves of Lynette's headscarves. The blue conchk republic one is not among them which I was fiercely interested in because she was wearing that in her last photo at the Abico in. Uh we also can't see in that very sort of frantic camera uh motions uh we can't see um anything that resembled the aqua colored bathing suit cover up that Lynette was also wearing in the last picture we saw of her. Nor could I see a black uh fanny pack. But that may be because the video that Carly and Steve were showing us were not didn't incorporate the other parts like the back bathroom and the back cabin where they slept. There there's there's a lot that's missing. So in the video I'm going to show you, you're going to see every inch of this boat and it there's so much to tell you about, but I'm going to tell you about it all the way through. But this is courtesy of Boat Snoop, a YouTube channel. Boat Snoop, the inside Snoop on Boats. It's hosted by Clint Johnson. And wouldn't you know it, the boat that he decided to feature uh was the boat that would be sold to Brian and Lynette Hooker, which they would then name Soulmate. So, let's take a look at Clint Johnson's video.
>> Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Boat Snoop. I'm your host Clint Johnson and today what we have is we have a Morgan 461 sailing sloop and uh these are real neat boats.
>> This is interesting. I have already learned something that I didn't know and that is that this is a Morgan 461 sailing sloop. I was given bad intelligence that it was a catch. It's a sloop. So, 46 foot sloop. I should have seen that because a sloop usually goes kind of up on on the front and the back and I didn't notice that when I was frantically videotaping it and circling it before. My bad. Again, I'm a sailor, but I'm not great. Um, but now I know it's a 46 ft Morgan sailing sloop. Okay, carry on, Clint.
>> There's a couple of things I want to point out that are not regular. Uh, one of them kind of found on the outside electronics wise that I mean you hear about them but most of them don't don't have it. And then uh something down inside that for most sailboats uh it's it's it's spectacular.
>> Oh wait, wait. Clint just said something that was really important. He said that this was uh something special. You know, the electronics on board this boat were really special. That's important because not every sailboat like this has like fabulous electronics. They have lots, but but for him who knows boating to really emphasize that, wow, you're going to see electronics. Well, that's important because electronics have been a big part of the story of Brian and Lynette Hooker and whether or not Brian ever made it back on that boat with Lynette instead of the story that he told us was she bounced off the dinghy back there and I floated to Marsh Harbor and we never made it back to Soulmate. So, carry on Clint Johnson.
>> So, anyway, um just want to start off. We'll take a look at this boat. These boats are quite literally they're they're they're built like battleships. Um, the owner of this boat quite literally told me, he said, "Clint," he goes, "the hole in some areas is like up to three inches thick." And I don't know if that goes across the whole thing or anything like that, but they're I mean, just huge, heavy blue water boats. And and these guys have literally come from Central America here just recently back here to Florida. It's all rigged and ready to go. Um, and they are just large large large vessels. Um, starting off with this boat, it's not something that came with the boat. Um, but these hard tops, I've seen uh pictures and things of some people building these on here. Um, this has been built and added to this boat and hugely highly uh desirable. You don't end up replacing canvas all the time. I mean, you do have a little canvas door, but uh this hard top makes it really nice, really protected. Um he has a hard dinghy, but we'll we'll get to all that when we get up on the boat.
>> Oh, that dinghy. I cannot wait because the dinghy actually came with the boat and we you're going to see it a little bit more of the dinghy in just a hot minute, but we actually looked to make sure that it is the same dinghy and it is. The manufacturer is a Boss dinghy and we've told you about that before. They're no longer making that dinghy, but now we know Brian and Lynette did not go and buy that dinghy. It came with this boat, this Boss hard hauled dinghy. It's not rubber. It's not bouncy. She bounced off the back of the boat. It ain't bouncy. It's a hard hull pontoony kind of dinghy. And you're going to get a tour of it in a moment. Pay attention to the exterior lights when you see them. It'll matter. You're going to see some lights all around. And I don't even think these are the lights that Brian and Lynette ended up adding uh to Soulmate. But let's keep going.
>> All right. Let's get up on this boat. All right. And now that I've got up here, um we'll just take a quick uh tour of the top sides. This specific owner actually has a uh hard dinghy and he says it's uh >> isolated different areas in it. So even if you took water in certain areas, the thing would still stay afloat. Um it's a dinghy by a company called Boss.
>> There it is. Boss >> roller fringing Genoa two anchors. I kind of like on this boat that >> the dolphins.
>> They have the dolphins.
>> That was it. If you look at the video that we shot of Soulmate in Marsh Harbor sitting on the ming ball that they've been renting at the conchkin, uh, guess what? You can see the dolphin. So, all of those other ways that we identified the boat, you know, the the HIN number, the hall ID, the MMSI, the uh the call signs, all those things, awesome. But it's the dolphins for me. This is their boat because that's an unusual thing to have, I don't know, soldered on to the front of your boat. It's almost like the old ships where they used to have the mermaids, you know, out the front. That's what that felt like to me. But I don't often see hood ornaments uh like that on a sailboat. Maybe I just missed them. But that stood out to me.
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Electric windless foot pedals for the electric windless. Oh, super important part right there. Electric windless. Foot pedals for the electric windless. If you are not a sailor, that might have just gone by like I don't know what that is. So, that is a super important part of anchoring. Typically, someone's going to be back there at the helm driving and someone else is going to be up at the front using those foot pedals to get the anchor up or down. And the windless is what brings the anchor up or down. Here's the thing. It's real hard to do that if you're solo handling the boat. And Brian Brian Hooker talks about solo handling the boat a couple of times after Lynette goes, you know, missing. Uh it's it's almost impossible to operate that windless and get the anchor up and then drive the boat back or drive it forward to, you know, release your anchor from whatever it's hooked on down below. And so that's why he was saying, "I'm having trouble. I need someone to help me uh get the boat off the hook at the anchorage, you know, at Aunt Pat's Bay off of Elbow Key because Lynette wasn't there to be up operating that windless, operating that anchor up and down while he's at the helm.
So, let's keep going. So, the first item I'll get right to it. This boat, I know you can't really see it, but it's up there. Maybe I can zoom this in a little bit. It has a flare system. And for those of you who don't know what a FLEER system is, um it allows you to see at night and it's a camera and you can see it on a readout down below. And so if you were coming into, you know, dark areas at night or whatever or look, there's a vessel far off at night, even pitch black, um or close to pitch black, you can actually zoom in, take a look, um and it effectively gives you night vision, which is really really cool feature. Not common on sailboats. I've heard of it, of course. But, uh, another thing I wanted to point out is these actually slide open on both sides. I'm not going to slide them all the way open, but so you can still get air flow in there. So, you have the advantage of it being hard. You're really well protected, uh, but at the same time, you can slide them open and get, uh, get air flow.
I want to point out this engine on the back. Um, that engine on the back, uh, that would be the engine that you would put on the transom of the dinghy. And that one looks to me to be, I don't know, maybe like a 10 horsepower, maybe a six horsepower, I don't know. But that would, you know, motor you around using fuel, uh, you know, probably some kind of a mix with oil and fuel. Uh, so you could drive your dinghy around. But Brian and Lynette did not choose to use an engine like that. They ended up with an electric engine, the kind that you charge. They're kind of rare. I'm not going to lie. I I've never seen one. Um and so when we first started covering this story and he was talking about Lynette went out with the kill switch, I thought, "Bullshit, she did." You only put a kill switch on your wrist if you're alone on a jet ski or on a vessel, so you're, you know, your vessel doesn't take off without you. But if you go overboard, you don't want to take the power with you because, you know, you want them to come back and get you. They they should be under power to come back and get you.
So, this is a center cockpit boat. So, the nice advantage to that is is that any big following seas, waves from uh coming from the stern, even if they were to crash up on the deck a little bit, you're way up here. You're way up there. you're all protected. Also, the rock end of the boat, you're not at the farthest end. You know, you're not up at the bow. It's going to rise more at the aft and the stern and it's going to rise more. It's a lot more gentle when you're protected here in these center cockpits. So, huge advantage. This boat, she has a radar mounted back here. She has the thin solar panels, wind generator, motor for the dinghy, nice Nissan 8 horse. You got a life sling right here that you can throw over just in case somebody fell over. And some really solid dinghy dabbits for the dinghy. It does come with an inflatable life raft.
>> Wait a minute, they've got that life thing on board Soulmate. I don't know if they kept it there when they bought the boat. They may not have, but let's not forget Brian's story is that they were on the dinghy and that he threw a floaty at her. Like something you swim with, a little foamy that you swim with. It's not a life preserver. But I'm not sure that that thing, even though it sounds like, ooh, that could be a clue. I'm not so sure it could be.
by River. And on this boat going to the master aft stateateroom, there is a there is an entrance. You can open this up, pull this pull this off, and it will slide and you can actually enter through the aft end as well as up through uh the cockpit. Okay, I want to stop there for a minute because all the way along the fire and rescue guys have told us that they pulled up next to Soulmate the morning that all this awfulness happened overnight and they've got Brian on board. They've rescued him from his, you know, I'd been marooned on Marsh Harbor and they brought him back for the first time back to Soulmate and they pulled up next to Soulmate and Brian got out onto the back here and so did one of the police officers with him and then he was mucking around in the back. I think that might be where he was mucking around that entrance that he was just saying to the master cabin because apparently there was an air conditioner that he removed. This is what the fire and rescue guys witnessed happening on board. And they they couldn't understand. He was mcking around there removing this piece of equipment uh for like a minute before suddenly he then and the police officer went down below. That makes sense. if he was finding a hidea key and then removing the air conditioner to get the hide a key and then opening up the locked hatch so that you could go down below because when you leave your boat if you're a liboard, you lock your front door cuz anybody can just get up and steal your stuff while you're having a nice day out on an excursion. So he actually said something to his friend on a recording. I had to break into my own boat. That's how he said it. And that's what I think he's referring to. And I think that back area, that little entrance to the master cabin they were talking about, that might be the place where the fire and rescue guys saw him messing around to get the hide to keep.
>> Once again, more solar. I like to say I think he said it was around 600 something watts of solar, but it just uh leaves my mind, you know, there for a bit. But even here at this marina, he's not hooked up to shore power. I mean, he has shore power connections if he wants it, but he said quite literally everything that they run, they do not need to run shore power a lot of times for the things that they do on this boat.
>> Okay, that's important. That's important. So, this guy, um, Clint Johnson knows his stuff. He's talking about the solar panels on board this boat as being so um sophisticated and updated and strong that this boat doesn't even need to plug into the power on the dock to be, you know, to have power because we don't really have much on the solar. No, no, no. He's saying the solar panels are so good that they don't even need to plug in on the dock. Which tells me that if the power went out or if Brian uh Hooker's boat went offline, say at 9:30 at night and then came back online at 8:30 in the morning, it probably isn't a power event because the solar panels are so good. They don't even need shore power. So, it's probably not a power event as to why the boat suddenly went out of range of the satellites. It could be a couple things as has been explained to me. Could be cloud cover, but that not that's not usually 11 hours, right? Could be a problem with the satellites, but then everybody would be out. More often than not, you turn it off and you turn it back on. That's how it was explained to me. And so, or your power goes out, and if your power goes out, then of course you lose connectivity to the satellites as well. But power going out, looks like this solar power was second to none. Let's keep going.
>> Here we have the Helm station. And this boat, it has an autopilot right here on the wheel. He said this was like the original when he bought the boat that came with it, but he also has a Ray Rayarine hydraulic autopilot. So, he effectively has a backup. So he generally runs the hydraulic, but because they they were cruisers and they cruised a lot and that was like, you know, a third um a third uh crewman. If something did go wrong, he could always default back to this one as a backup. So nice electronics on this boat with Rayarine. That that that right there that is the autopilot rayarine radio. Really nice unit. Really large and protected cockpit on this boat. And this really nice glass that's protected by canvas. Also can roll up so you can get more air flow on those really nice days. There's another Rayarine unit up here. I did forget to uh take it off, but look at that guys. Really large hybrid touch unit. I'm guessing that maybe that's where you could see the fleer. I'm just not quite sure. Let's stop before we go downstairs. The rayarine units. Okay, so given that the technology on board this boat is so extensive and there are so many systems that uh could be of forensic popcorn trail, my belief is that Brian, if he did something to Lynette, and I'm not saying he did because he's not charged with anything, but I don't think that he would use Soulmate as a ghost chip. We talked about how to make it a ghost chip, but I don't think he would. Only because I'm starting to see in this tour that woof, there is a lot for forensic investigators to sink their teeth into to see if that boat moved, right? Um, so I think if Brian did something that was completely opposite to the story he told us, uh, with Lynette bouncing out, uh, if he used the dinghy maybe to say, I don't know, move a body. Again, I'm not saying he did. He's not charged with anything. Um, the soulmate would stay right on its anchor all night long, bobbing along, and these incredible electronic systems would uh would show that it's there and didn't move. Let's keep going.
>> But hey, let's get on down inside this boat. And uh like I told you earlier, there's something that's really awesome down here that I want to show you guys. Besides the fact that it's just a very large boat with a lot of room. All right, as we come down here, we start off with the galley. Really, really deep, large sinks. That one you could definitely fit like a six quart uh Insta Pot in. So for cooking that way you have your really nice gimbled propane stove and oven. They do have a microwave on board radios. Couple of them they have installed a refrigerator on in in here. Fairly decent size for this sailboat. Additionally, they have um here would be an ice box or a lot of people if you have a refrigerator, they would just use this as just a ton of storage for food items. But you can see the drain down there. So, you could use it if you wanted to throw a bunch of ice in. Storage out there on the shelves for pots, pans, things like that. Here's another one. These are not refrigerated. Something I wanted to say about this specific boat, this guy has when when I show the wiring and stuff and then a lot of the plumbing. He has gone through and replplumbed so much of this boat with really high quality stuff. You can see it right there. And you know, you don't have wiring runs on this boat that are just going all mumbled, jumbled. He has done a really great job of going back through this boat and just cleaning out an electrical system. When I first came on board, I was so impressed. Got your electrical pan panel. You have your uh navigation nav station. This table is about navstation table is literally twice the size of the normal ones that I see. It is huge. And I don't know if that really picks up in the video, but it's just it's huge. Don't want to forget um he has really nice pretty new uh ACR e-b so that if you you know something were to happen out at sea that could go on the water with you on your life raft. They could find by satellite. They could come find and pick you up hopefully.
Now we're going to go into the salon. really long large couch. A lot of storage outboard. There is storage underneath all these seats as well. Big storage out outboard there behind those doors. Large TV. That plastic that he's rolled down there was actually kind of ingenious. I asked him, I said, you know, hey, if you're in the kitchen, you can't see each other. But what he said was that really really nice TV has really great sound but it comes out the bottom and he put the plastic there just kind of rolled it down um so that the sound would actually bounce back here in the salon. He said it was kind of focusing itself more back into the galley and it was making it hard to hear. So he had put that up but it's you know it's just temporary. Um, looks like it could be rolled up if you wanted, but probably fit one, two, three, four, five, maybe six people here in this galley. Going on forward up to the V-birth. Large amount of storage. Now, this is not one of the things that uh I was talking about the big deal, but it is a huge upgrade. And both heads have this in this forward head. What we have is a nature's head composting toilet.
>> Ah, so this is important. He calls it a forward head and an aft head. Basically, it means potty bathroom. So, there's a bathroom in the front and a bathroom in the back. There are two bathrooms. I don't know if Carly and Steve looked into that forward head, that forward bathroom. I don't know if, say, Brian and Lynette decided, I want this bathroom and and you take that bathroom. Uh, or should we share the back bathroom and leave the front bathroom as a guest bathroom? I don't know how many guests they have. I know they had Carly in February, but it's just the the terminology is forward head. Head head is the the name uh for Boers uh for toilet. So, just interesting. I don't know that they checked that forward head and I don't know that they checked that uh back head, but Carly said that they didn't. Let's keep going.
And if you watch some of my other videos, I talk about like that Ranger Tug had a airhead composting toilet and my big old Tiana 42 FFT sailboat. She has an airhead. But one of the advantages of they work just the same. These Nature's Head, if you have the room like this boat does. These Nature's Head actually, it's a wider toilet seat. Um, and works exactly the same. Huge upgrade. Really nice. You don't have to deal with blackwater tanks. The current owner of this boat, he hates the blackwater tanks. I have to agree with him. I hate them, too, because over years it just it gets nasty, smelly. Um, so having that in the forward head and in the aft head is a is a is a huge upgrade in my opinion. Fairly decent sized V-birth. You know, your normal typical sailboat V-birth. He has a vacuum under there, but more storage. Before we exit the salon here, I am going to open up a couple of these just to show you how large they are. Probably a little bit better view here. But it kind of gives you gives you a feel for how much storage outboard that there is. And as we start to head back aft, I do want to point out that this is a keelstepped mast. Like I've said in all my videos, the keelstep mass, they go they go all the way down and they're considered by most people to be a lot a lot stronger. Um even though if you your mass does end at the deck. Um with modern regaining and stuff, they can still be really strong and everything, but a lot of people prefer these.
All right. So, this is still not the surprise, but this used to be some some bunks, but in my opinion, he's wisely for his uses. Um, he's converted this to a workbench with a vice areas that he can work and store all kinds of parts. So, he uses this whole area. one time he was a diesel mechanic so he does the work on this motor and so really large area to work on anything on this boat and you just don't find that a lot what I was talking about earlier it's the engine room guys the engine the engine room on this is absolutely for a sailboat and even for a lot of power boats this is a wonderful wonderful wonderful engine room. Um, he's kept this engine clean. Um, I did get an engine run video for the listing on this cuz this boat is currently being listed as of the time of this video. In the future, if you watch this video, I'm sure this boat will be gone. But she just ran like a champ. But look at this access. Look at the access on this. And you can see he's organized the wiring runs. They're not just all all totally all over the place. He has everything set up on the walls all organized, nice and clean. And if you're wondering, you know, hey, how do I get over to the other side? uh through the aft head there is an access door, large access door that you could get there too. But this I mean this right here just makes it I mean this sort of boat having this sort of access huge plus.
>> If you're wondering what access means I mean it's kind of exactly what he's saying. Uh a lot of boats have engine rooms that are you know way deep down. you got to crawl down in there and be all cramped over in the dark and have a, you know, a bite light or some kind of a light in your mouth to look at the engine. But this one looks almost like it's like as tall as you stand engine room with, you know, ways to get at that engine from both sides. And so he's saying, "Wow, look at that access." That is unusual for a boat.
As we head a towards the master stateateroom, there is an access to the aft head. And there's also one right there going back to the master stateoom, but this is a huge walk-in. He did keep a blackwater tank and toilet that goes to a black water tank, but he also installed an airhead. So he did he did keep a backup. So there are there are two toilets here. So somebody does want to have that black water tank. He has one and he has one head. But here's another one of those nature's head composting toilets. Sinks in really great condition. walk-in sha shower area seat so you can sit down. And once again, here's this large access to the other side of the engine room. If you're going to be a cruiser, when you get out there, there aren't places to work on your boat everywhere you go. And having really good access to your engine and all the other associated components is just absolutely wonderful. All right. Well, we'll go through this door. And this is a really large area. Really large bed, cabinets and drawers. Plenty of space. Plenty of space for storage and for sleeping. And then another little surprise. If you were to sell this or you got even a cold floor tonight or somewhere else cuz it does get cold even in the warmer regions of the planet, you do have a heater, propane powered heater that you could heat everything, heat, heat it up in here. There is that aft hatch I was telling you about.
>> That's that aft hatch that I'm still trying to figure out how this kind of like a window unit air conditioner worked. But it might have been that you'd open that aft hatch and that air conditioner would somehow work its way in so that this back this aft cabin, this master cabin would stay cool in the really hot nights. Cuz let me tell you, woof, on board a sailboat, it can be or motorboat, it can be miserable if you don't have air conditioning and if you're in the, you know, the tropics and the hot hot climate and you're hoping for like a crossdraft to keep you cool, but that doesn't always happen. So having an air conditioner and then that heater, wow. Um those are always really great things, but that air conditioning unit was what the fire and rescue guys figured he was tampering with or messing with to maybe get a hide key. Um but I'm still trying to figure out how that would have worked, but it's somewhere back there. Anyway, let's keep going.
>> And there is an extra hanging closet. large. Really deep. Well, all righty guys. Uh this concludes this episode of Boat Snoop. Uh once again, I really appreciate your time.
>> Well, okay. So that is a heck of a tour and it really does I think impart on people who are not sailors or boers that you really are in a very small space just the two of you and sometimes families of four. I mean I've seen some really crazy things of people just cramming themselves into you know something even smaller than this 46 foot sloop. Um but you really got to get along and you really got to be good with your partner if you're gonna live this way. If you're going to live in 46 ft of space that has to incorporate your engine, your mast, your equipment, your everything, uh there is not a lot of space to get away and you can get on each other's nerves and you can get angry. And Lynette has left that boat multiple times in the past. She has said to her mother, "That's it. I'm done. It's getting really bad on that boat." and she has gone back to Florida to be with her mother only to decide later on to return to the situation she said was so bad. And it breaks my heart, but on March 11th, she had a ticket uh to leave Brian again. And just three weeks later, she's gone. And we don't know how or why, but we're starting to maybe figure it out. But I think it's really, really helpful for us to have had that opportunity. Clint Johnson, thank you so much for doing that tour of that boat because I I think at the time you did it, you had no idea how significant that tour was going to be. I mean, it was just another cool cool boat that that you were featuring. By the way, I love your YouTube channel. Um, but that became a very important video for us all to see how Brian and Lynette were living. And then when Carly came to visit, she was up in the V-birth at the front. You know, it's a V. It's the bow of the boat. So, it's called a V-birth. And you saw in Carly and Steve's video, it was just jammed like hoarders with all their up there. But Carly had a video where she'd said, "Mom cleaned out the V-birth and set it up for me." And it was like a really sweet little moment that she had when she came to visit and stay with her mom and her stepdad. And I think something else we saw was that Clint, who is an expert and sees lots and lots and lots of boats. It's what he does, singled out this boat for its um electronics majesty, right? How special it was, how souped up it was, which tells you that the guy who operated it had some pretty good technical savvy to be able to use all that equipment and operate all that equipment. and want a boat with all that equipment just gives us a little more insight. I keep saying this over and over. I feel a bit like a broken record, so I'm sorry. But when we investigate these stories, it's like a thousandpiece puzzle just dumped out on the table in front of you. And little by little, you just start building it. And you see this one piece, you're like, I have no idea. I'm just going to stick that off to the side because eventually something will be adjacent and it will fit. That's sort of what we're doing, you know, every episode. We find something else and the puzzle pieces start to get, you know, comfortable in their adjacent, if that's such a word. Um, and I think that this tour of the boat is going to help us in that regard. It's going to help us to know certain things. Um, forensically, it's a boon for anybody who wants to know what's there. And we don't even know what else ended up on board, what other kinds of fancy electronics systems because we know that Lynette had a post at one point saying Brian's geeking out and networking the boat. So, he was doing even more to this already electronically supreme sloop. And one other thing I want to mention about this video that has been so informative is how special this boat is. Um, look, sailboats are expensive. Sailing is expensive. Boating is expensive. But Brian Brian Hooker, he's going to want that boat because right now it's his home. Lynette sold everything. She said they they sold everything. She sold everything and this was their home. They lived aboard for four years. So, he doesn't have a home. And from what we've learned from many of the former co-workers and friends is that he'd burned through his 401k, too. Lynette, on the other hand, had upwards of $650,000 in her 401k from AT&T. They both work for AT&T. So, I'm going to do an episode in the future about follow the money and the finances and all the rest, but for now, this boat is expensive, right? And it's his home. So, my feeling is that he's going to want to get this thing back regardless of everything that's happened. I don't think he wants to step foot back in the Bahamas cuz that amay happened one day after he got out of the Husco. I'm going to stay here forever looking for my wife. I'm not leaving without her. It's going to take a higher authority to stop me from searching horse While you were saying all those things, you were secretly paddling under the water with immigration authorities and the US embassy getting an emergency passport so that 24 hours later you'd be in the sky on the way to America because that's what you did, Brian Hooker. In any case, that boat is still in Marsh Harbor. And every day we get it checked on. And it was checked on today and it's still there this morning. And tonight it's still on that moing ball, but you know how much longer you got to pay for that moing ball. I don't know how much they're gonna, you know, how much rent they're maybe a crew or what the conchk in is going to say about the the moing ball rental. Hey, bro. I mean, you can't just stay here forever. We need that moing ball. What are you going to do with that boat? So, we're watching it. We're watching it really closely. And who knows what's going to happen with that boat. But Brian Hooker doesn't have a place to live right now unless he's bunking in with his sister. He flew right to Sacramento to see his sick mom and sister was around that area. He's also got ties to Michigan. And some said he was there up until I don't know like a week ago. Hasn't been seen in four or five days. That's the word I got. But at this point, I don't know where Brian Hooker is. I just know he's not on board this Morgan 461 sailing sloop. My great thanks to Clint Johnson for doing all that work and providing us with a real insight. And my great thanks to you as always. I just want to remind you of our tip line because we've actually received some extraordinary video and pictures and intelligence from you. So, thank you. Drop deadadserious info@gmail.com. If you want to contact me, if you want to send us video, if you want to send us pictures, if you want to send us tips, if you know where Brian is, if you saw Brian, if you know anything about this boat, if you've seen this boat moving, anything specifically things from April 4th, we are really looking for the movements out in the Sea of Abico, April 4th, the night before Easter. It was a Saturday night, the weather was lovely, and so a lot of people were on Easter vacation. If you know people who were in the Bahamas, specifically the Abacose, Elbow Key, Marsh Harbor area, if you know them, give them a call. Ask them if they've got video. Ask them if they consider sharing it. Drop deadads serious info@gmail.com. And if you don't want to send it to me, send it to the authorities. Easy to do. CIS, the Coast Guard investigative services, they are busting their asses on this and they've got a an anonymous app. It's called CGIS, anonymous tips. You just download CGIS and you can send in your anonymous tips to them or you can be non- anonymous. But um just know that if you send it to CSUS, they can't send it to me. If you send it to me, I am going to definitely send it to them as well. So that you know, I'm not keeping important forensic uh work from them. Um but I do encourage you reach out with that tip line because it has been helping enormously. And thank you. Thank you so much for your subscriptions if you've subscribed. If you haven't, please do so. And you know, thank you for liking if you've done that. If you haven't, do me a solid. Please like the video. And then also, thanks for all the members. Uh you go above and beyond. And it's really great to have you in the club. Uh for those of you who aren't members, I drop exclusive material and I do exclusive conversations with the members. They can ask me any questions. If you want to ask me questions like that, jump on the membership and you get to be part of that uh that one-on-one uh conversation that we have every couple weeks. Thanks again for listening and watching. And remember, truth isn't just serious, y'all.