Are we not men? We are Devo!

High winds were forecast along the Atlantic side of Florida for January 29, so it was no surprise when the conditions arrived. Yet, there was Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater and Miami crews having to rescue two people that day from their disabled sailboat approximately 200 miles off Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The yacht was Critical Window, which is a 2015 Beneteau Oceanis 41 being marketed online for charter. With the mainsail stowed but headsail in taters and crew likely overwhelmed, the operators activated their emergency positioning indicating locator beacon at approximately 2:30 pm alerting Coast Guard to their distress.

An Air Station Miami HC-144 Ocean Sentry aircrew arrived in the area, and the operator shot off a distress flare directing the aircrew to their exact location. With weather on scene at approximately 40 mph winds and 10-12 foot seas, they wanted to abort.

An Air Station Clearwater MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew arrived on scene and hoisted the people from the vessel. They were brought to awaiting emergency medical services at Melbourne International Airport. There were no reported medical concerns.

“The operator used the vessel’s registered EPIRB and conserved the flares until help was near,” said Chief Petty Officer John Andzelik, operations unit watchstander, District Seven. “This due diligence allowed Coast Guard crews to rescue them as fast as possible.”

And because of the safety equipment, and a well-trained rescue personnel, there apparently was no need for boaters to have assessed the weather forecast, or no need to heed the warning.

Should we have taken the 70s American rock band Devo more seriously when they predicted the regression of mankind.

“‘Jocko Homo’ was one of the first songs I wrote for the band,” said Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh, who was a student at Kent State University. “The whole song was meant to be a theme song for the theory of de-evolution and for Devo, what we were about. It was meant to lay out the story right there.

“It was a collection of discussions we had where we sat around in Kent after students had been shot, and decided that what we were seeing happening on the planet, when we looked at the news and read the paper, was not evolution but was more appropriately described as de-evolution.”