Wife Falls Off Sailboat In Rhode Island . . . Husband Does Not Realize She Is Gone Until Four Hours Later

It is not clear what is worse: having your wife fall off your sailboat or not noticing for four hours that she is gone.  That is the situation of a couple in Newport, Rhode Island where a woman fell of her husband’s 39-foot sailboat while sailing from Newport to East Greenwich.

The wife was eventually found on Prudence Island at around 4 a.m. on Saturday after a boater heard screams from the shore.

It gets even stranger. The stranger was found two hours earlier in Warwick when he ran the boat aground.  He told police that he only remembered striking the Claiborne Pell Bridge around 1 p.m. and that his next memory was waking up when his sailboat ran aground around 11 p.m.  When the police questioned him he said that his wife was sleeping below deck according to WPRI-TV.

Some reports indicate that the husband had been drinking alcohol, which could lead to charges or fines.