text: Skip Ad Ad Loading... x Embed x Share Video: Roffs in West Melbourne is using technology to help with search for missing teen boaters. Video by Tim Shortt. Posted 7/27/15. 
   
   Austin Stephanos, left, 14, and Perry Cohen, 14, were reported missing on Friday. (Photo: AP) 
   
   WEST MELBOURNE, Fla. — If Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen are floating at sea awaiting rescue, as their families and rescuers hope, subtle current-speed changes surrounding the Gulf Stream could drastically alter their drift course — making search efforts more difficult. 
   
   “Even if it’s only a quarter of a mile-per-hour difference, well, a quarter of a mile-per-hour in 10 hours starts adding up. You get to be 2 to 3 miles apart, and then you start getting 15 to 20 miles apart. Then you’re 30,” said Mitch Roffer, founder and president of Roffer’s Ocean Fishing Forecasting Service. 
   
   “Then if one of those possible trajectories goes into the core of the Gulf Stream, now you’re moving twice as fast,” Roffer said. 
   
   “They could be anywhere from 60 to 180 miles away from where they started, just as a function of where they were in the Gulf Stream. That’s a huge difference, between 60 and 180 miles. So you’re talking about a 120-mile variance in your estimate of where they might be,” he said. 
   
   ROFFS is a West Melbourne oceanographic consulting company that analyzes currents and pinpoints “convergence zones” along Gulf Stream boundaries where fish are likely to congregate. Roffer’s primary customers are recreational and commercial fishermen. 
   
   Mitch Roffer, Ph.D., is founder and president of Roffer’s Ocean Fishing Forecasting Service in West Melbourne, They specialize in fisheries oceanography, environmental monitoring, and operational support. Roffer is analyzing satellite maps as parta of the search for the missing teen boaters, Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen. (Photo: TIM SHORTT/FLORIDA TODAY) 
   
   He said a friend of the boys’ families asked him to help with the search effort, so he analyzed satellite imagery Monday and posted color-coded maps on Facebook and Twitter for use by volunteer rescuers. 
   
   Monday morning, Stephanos’ family stated on social media that they believe the boys may have crafted makeshift flotation devices using a white boat engine cover, life jackets and a white cooler. 
   
   Assuming the boys ditched their boat on the western side of the Gulf Stream, Roffer predicted they may have floated today to a region from Cape Canaveral northward, extending about 30 miles seaward. He said volunteer pilots flew missions from Melbourne and New Smyrna Beach using his information. 
   
   Ted Lund is a Florida Today outdoors writer and Cocoa Beach licensed boat captain. He said the boys’ disappearance demonstrates the power of the sea. 
   
   “It’s just another illustration that the ocean isn’t inherently dangerous — it’s incredibly unforgiving. And it doesn’t care if you’re a captain of industry or a Cuban refugee. The ocean is just indifferent,” Lund said of the incident. 
   
   “And you can find yourself in trouble very quickly,” he said. 
   
   Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1Sa051L ||||| The families of two teenage boys who went missing while fishing off the coast of Florida pleaded for help Monday, asking people to scour the shores for debris or any clues that might lead to their sons. 
   
   The 19-foot white single-engine boat that Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen, both 14, took out off the coast of Jupiter late last week was found Sunday, roughly 67 miles off the shore of Daytona Beach. There was no sign of the teens in the boat, according to the Coast Guard. 
   
   "We want everybody, once again, from Palm Beach all the way up the coast of Georgia ... to get on down there and look for anything off," Nick Korniloff, Perry's stepfather, said Monday. ||||| Just One More Thing... 
   
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target: – The families of Perry Cohen and Austin Stephanos are living a nightmare—the 14-year-old boys are missing at sea and their capsized boat was found on Sunday—but they believe the teens have the skills to survive. As the search off the coast of Florida continues, family members say the boys may have crafted a flotation device using items including life jackets, an engine cover, and a cooler that were missing from their single-engine fishing boat, USA Today reports. Relatives and neighbors say the boys, like others in their Palm Beach County neighborhood, are experienced sailors and have been around boats their entire lives, reports the Palm Beach Post. A Coast Guard spokesman says the search is continuing "aggressively" and the water is warm enough that the teens, who were last seen on Friday, could survive for four or five days, the Post reports. Because of currents, search efforts are focusing on the area north of where the boat was found near Daytona Beach, though they could be hard to spot, the spokesman says. "When a person is in the water, you're basically looking for the chest up, so it's a relatively small object you're looking for," he says. "It's a challenging environment." The families have urged people from Palm Beach to the coast of Georgia to look for clues that might have washed up, especially the Yamaha engine cover and YETI cooler, NBC News reports.