X-Message-Number: 23145
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2003 00:18:46 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Ev Cooper Corrections

The articles from _Cryonics_ on Ev Cooper Mike Price reprints in #23124 
were most interesting. Readers may have noticed some discrepancy in the 
dates, however; it says Cooper left Nantucket Dec.17 but his friends 
reported him missing in mid-November. As it happens, I have some 
correspondence from some of Cooper's friends which I've used to correct 
that report as follows:

>  Ev's optimism may have been a factor in his disappearance and presumed
>death.  Ev had spent the summer of 1982 in Nantucket helping his friends
>finish construction of their sailboat.  On October 9th, while they were
>putting the newly completed sailboat through its paces, a sudden gale blew
>through Nantucket harbor, with ninety-knot winds out of the Northeast.  A
>large charter motor-sailer dragged her Bruce anchor and smashed into Ev's
>boat, the PELICAN.  PELICAN was apparently rather seriously damaged by the
>accident;  and the insurance company for the commercial vessel which caused
>the damage was refusing to pay off, calling the storm and the damage "an
>act of God."
>     Ev's friends urged him to remain in Nantucket for the winter and stay
>with
>                                      (9)
>
>
>them while he completed repairs to PELICAN.  Unfortunately, Ev was anxious
>to return to Beaufort, N.C., as an unusually severe winter was predicted
>for the Northeast.  So, Ev made makeshift repairs and left Nantucket on
>Oct. 17.  A few days later his friends received a Christmas card from Ev
>saying that he was unable to find a sailing companion at Martha's Vineyard
>and so he was sailing alone.  He failed to arrive at Beaufort on schedule
>and so, in mid-November his friends had a Coast Guard search performed.
>There was and has been no word from Ev.  He failed to change his forwarding
>address for mail, and no friends heard from him, or Coast Guard or other
>vessels sighted him since shortly after he left Martha's Vineyard on or
>about Oct. 21st.  There is a small chance that Ev and the PELICAN may be
>alive, but disabled, floating somewhere in the Atlantic.  There is a
>smaller chance that Ev set off for Europe or out to sea for an extended
>trip.  This latter speculation is dismissed by those who knew Ev most
>recently and well;  they say he was much too concerned about the condition
>of his damaged PELICAN to risk such a journey.

Further comments. There is a Beaufort, S.C. (named in the _Cryonics_ 
article) as well as N.C., but newspaper clippings make it clear that the 
N.C. one is correct. Cooper did, evidently, buy Christmas cards in October 
(said they were cheap).

I don't recall the "Jump for Jesus" piece Mike refers to--could it be a 
short article Cooper wrote for _Freeze-Wait-Reanimate_ that has slipped my 
memory, or something more substantial? More info appreciated.

Mike Perry

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