Jim Trindade: Lost At Sea

A friend of Jim Trindade emailed me about this story. I simply haven't had any time to follow it up. I noticed it did finally get a mention on Fox tonight.

The background on the story is here. It really doesn't seem to add up. The emailer was kind enough to dig up another link on piracy after we had a brief exchange on what might have happened to Jim Trindade.

Gamblin's bright blue eyes fill with tears when he says this. His best friend of 30 years, Jim Trindade, is out there, somewhere, in the dark, alone.

Trindade vanished the afternoon of Thursday, Jan. 12, in the ocean between Palm Beach County and Memory Rock, a marker known to boaters who travel to the Bahamas. Since then, Gamblin has spent every waking moment trying to find him.

He coordinated a massive private search, first rallying friends with private planes, then turning the great room of his rambling home near Wellington into a war room.

Trindade's friends, six or more at a time, sit around a U-shaped table, entering data into nine computers. They call themselves the "Jimmy T. Recovery Team," and they work, day and night, enhancing Coast Guard infrared photographs, logging inventories of what was on Trindade's boat, hiring forensics experts, studying the wall-size maps and charts that detail every fact Gamblin knows for sure about that Thursday afternoon.

Comments

[Darlene]

what a sad, sad story. makes ya not wanna leave your home.

[PoorPaulaNNJ]

Scary! I sure hope Gamblin finds answers as well as his friend.
The piracy angle is an absolute possibility. If they are brazen enough to attack luxury cruiseliners, then they're doing everything inbetween.
Dan, I hope your coverage of this story influences others to cover it as well; otherwise, it will just continue to escalate.
Take care

[Sweetie]

I hope you find your friend and what really happened to him. That is sad, my thoughts and prayers are with you and his family. Take care.

[moey]

I hope he is found, what a sad story. We have friends who have sailed between Florida/Bahamas/Virgin Islands over the years and have had no problems. Sometimes I think the sleek fast speedboats might become the target of people up to no good, whether it is to possibly steal the boat or whatever the person might have on the boat. Of course that doesn't mean that sometimes sailboats are not targeted also. What a sad story; I hope he is eventually found okay, but it looks pretty grim. Moey

[Suzanne]

To keep the investigation moving forward, friend Roger Gamblin has launched his own Web site, www.helpjimmy.org, with a detailed timeline of the events.

[taylor]

Hey, Im Taylor.Jim is my daddy. i hate reading all this stuff.. it makes me sad. all im left with is my mom now. and its hard.. VERY hard.We know for fact there was foul play, because there's satalight images...unfortunitly though my mother and i cant get ahold of them. :(

but keep praying,because someday...we'll know.
love,
Tay

[drug runner suspect]

Hi, I have been told he was a drug dealer and he finally got what was coming. shady deals with shady people. he was meeting up to do a deal and obviously it went bad. FBI should see this already but his drug dealing got the best of him.

[Bob]

You know it is disgusting that there are so many sick and depraved people on the Internet who desperately seek the attention of others by casting horrible aspersions, even to those who have passed away.

I do not believe in God, but I hope that I am wrong. Not because I want an afterlife so much as I want you to burn in hell.

I am hoping that his best friend took down his website because he was ready to bring closure rather than the thought of not being able to handle the sickos out there.

Now that I have vented...

---

As far as the GPS unit goes, has a professional taken a look at the unit? Depending on the implementation of the GPS units, the memory might not have been erased but "de-allocated". This would probably be an implementation detail that only the manufacturer would know.

[Patrick]

Thanks for your comments concerning the sick twisted individual that would respond to Jim's daughter with such puke and venom. As for both GPS units. The Coast Guard, FBI experts also the manufacturer have confirmed they were manually erased. The units were very high tech and the assumption would be that someont needed to know how they operated to do so. Americas most wanted just profiled the story and an unofficial opinion is.. the only way anyone got near the Donzi was to be with somone He knew. The GGS is the biggest clue... the only reason why it would be erased is that the info would tell a story in relation to other such recordings.???

[Bob]

Patrick,

Thanks for the response.

I would be interested to know more about these units and the complexity of the user interface.

I recently purchased a hand-held Magellan GPS unit. It is not easy to navigate the menus or remove segments of crumb trails. After a few hours, I could still not tell you how to do it short of erasing all of the memory. I have studied it for quite a while, it is just not that easy.

This leads to wonder, how could a passer by (assuming this was strickly a crime of opportunity) learn to erase these units during the commision of a crime?

I would definitely lean toward a theory that someone was very familiar with those GPS units. Someone who had spent time on the boat. Surely the list of those who have spent time on the boat is small. Do they all have an alibi? I would be especially interested in those people that knew about the trip but chose to not join in the crossing.

I did see the America's most wanted web page and studied it. I suspect that the forum that was taken down had quite a bit more information than is now available online.

Thanks.

[Patrick]

The FBI have no crime scene and no body? The last 2 people to Jim alive are the 2 boats in the caravan, They fell back because of supposed engine problems? The time window is approx 18 minutes.
Jims GPS was erased and one of the 2 GPS units on the other boats was supposedly malfunctioning and did not recoed. The one GPS that did record on the middle boat was full of anomolies? Unfortunately the only account of what happened is from the boys in the other boats. Pirates would have taken the boat not used the 200 gallons of missing fuel and returned the baot to the Gulf stream and set it adrift. Jim asked friends to make the trip with Him on His boat and would not of done so if he were planning someting. He did not fall off because how do you explain the erased GPS etc. The logical conclusion is that the GPS was erased becuse the info told a story in relation to other recorded data?

[JOE]

I have been studying this for sometime the answer is right in front of you.I don't beleve the other 2 know nothing no way why would jimmy pull ahead of them if he was so boat smart!!!! they fell behind jimmy cameback to investigate and saw them engaging in bad dealings jimmy was then killed and dumped in the ocean far away they then they dumped his body and made up this story. Have they taken a poly graph????want to catch jimmys killer theyre right in front of you guys!!