Surfers who survived sinking of Indonesian boat raise $50,000 for family of missing deckhand lost at sea for over one week as mother pleads, “Keep looking for him and put him in my arms”

"Keep looking for him and put him in my arms. You should all be out there looking. Everyone else is found. The boat is found.”

As streaming platforms and producers swarm the four surfers who survived two days lost at sea near Nias when the crappy Indo boat they were on was swamped by waves, money is being sought for the family of the one missing crew member.

The four surfers, Elliot Foote, Steph Weisse, Will Teagle and Jordan Short had been travelling through northern Sumatra to celebrate Foote’s thirtieth birthday, a gift from his father. The boat went missing on the fifty click trip between Nias and the island of Pinang in the Bankyaks, separated from another boat carrying eight other friends, during a storm.

Recalling the event Elliot said,

“When the first one [wave] came in, Jordie’s like, ‘alright guys, this could be serious. I was like all right sweet, grab me that, grab me something warm, grab me my knife, grab me this. We all started grabbing shit.”

All four friends were found after thirty-six hours, with two of the three crew members rescued shortly after.

 

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Lost at sea, and likely dead, is Fifan Satria, who was only on the boat ‘cause his Dad Muhammad Musa, who usually took the wheel, was sick and he was called in to help.

As the four Australians paddled off for help,  the other Indonesians on the boat, Mohammed Iqbal and Junardi Akhmad, stayed behind to help Fifan, who couldn’t swim.

“The foreigners paddled very quickly but we couldn’t keep up and we had to look after Fifan,” Iqbal told The Australian. “I tried to give Fifan a lot of encouragement. I reminded him to tie his surfboard to his body so whatever happened – if he felt dizzy or passed out – he would not sink to the sea. I told him if he didn’t do that and he passed out, he might not be found.”

With rescue unlikely, a crowd funding account has been set up by the survivors to raise money for Fifan’s family with 47k of a proposed 100 already raised, mostly from the survivors themselves.

The money is going to “assist and support the family and community of the one crew member who is still missing, to compensate the people who committed their time and resources to the rescue effort, and to help ensure nothing like this happens again.”

Meanwhile, Fifan’s mother Erlisda has pleaded for the search to continue.

“Please look for my son. Keep looking for him and put him in my arms. You should all be out there looking. Everyone else is found. The boat is found.”