Missing boaters clung to thread of hope

Missing boaters clung to thread of hope
Story Highlights
Three fishermen spent week on on capsized boat in Gulf of Mexico

Men rationed water, crackers, beer to live

Boater spotted fishermen about 180 miles from coast of Port Aransas, Texas

Coast Guard had called off search for men on Friday
CNN) -- They kept their bodies alive with rationed crackers, bubble gum, beer and three gallons of water. But spiritually, the three men lost at sea for eight days had something else to keep them going.

"We just kept praying, and we kept hope alive," rescued boater Tressel Hawkins told CNN on Monday. "Even though hope had managed to thread down to a little bitty string, I mean, that little bitty string could be just as strong as the rope you hung on to the first time you got started."

What was supposed to be a fishing expedition to catch swordfish and marlin became instead a test of survival.

Hawkins, 43, and his fellow boaters, Curtis Hall, 28, and James Phillips, 30, set out on August 21 from Matagorda Bay in Texas and went about 100 miles south. Their first night in the Gulf of Mexico almost proved fatal.

While Hawkins was sleeping, he said, he felt the bean bag he was resting on floating. He awoke to find water in the 23-foot catamaran knee-high. The water extractor had malfunctioned. He woke up Hall and Phillips and they tried to stop the flooding but it was too late, Hawkins said.
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Missing boaters clung to thread of hope