ZUCKERBERG YACHT DID NOT HEAR RADIO CALL FROM STALLED SKIFF, SPOKESMAN SAYS

A spokesman for Mark Zuckerberg said the crew of the Meta CEO's yacht did not respond to a radio call from a 21-foot skiff that ran out of fuel off the Alaskan coast because they did not hear the transmission. The incident occurred on 3 August when the skiff first contacted the US Coast Guard at approximately 9.32pm using a standard radio frequency. The Coast Guard determined approximately 25 minutes later that the vessel was not in distress and issued an assistance request, after which the Wilderness Legacy cruise ship towed the skiff to Farragut Bay and assisted with refuelling. The spokesman stated that by the time the crew of the 387-foot Launchpad yacht reviewed the Coast Guard contact on a different radio channel from the one they were operating on, assistance was already underway.

A passenger on the Wilderness Legacy posted on social media that the yacht's captain had said Mr Zuckerberg's vessel had "refused" to respond. The spokesman clarified that Mr Zuckerberg and his family were not aboard the yacht at the time. Ian Ralby, president of the nonprofit Auxilium Worldwide and a maritime law expert, said the crew would not have faced a legal obligation to respond in this case because the skiff was not in distress under maritime law. He distinguished between emergency calls requiring immediate assistance and non-emergency calls for help, saying the legal obligations differ between the two categories.

The incident gained public attention in recent days following the social media post. Maritime law experts indicated that crews are obligated to respond to distress calls only if doing so does not jeopardise their own vessel, a requirement that does not apply in cases where a vessel requires assistance but is not in distress.