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Yet by April, circulars were posted in Miami’s yacht marina requesting information on the yacht’s whereabouts.
$2,500.00 REWARD FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO THE RECOVERING OF THE VESSEL OR CREW OR LIFEBOATS as well as wreckage therefrom
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Last seen March 10, 1974 at Nassau Yacht Haven, NASSAU. Last heard from approximately March 24 while on an extended shakedown cruise somewhere in the BAHAMA ISLANDS.
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13’ Boston Whaler Dinghy aboard named “Little S.B.” plus 2 rafts.
Because the Saba Bank disappeared at a time when The Bermuda Triangle concept was feverishly hot (and lucrative), she has received more attention than other missing yachts. She appears in a number of books written at that time. Although her loss is certainly a mystery, there is little detailed information to go on like, for instance, in the case of the Witchcraft that tempts the logical.
In fact, Saba Bank doesn’t stand out from the basic scenario. The circular reflects this basic scenario— left port, never seen again. Anything could have happened to her, of course, anything.
Yachts anchor by a blue hole— one of the exotic attractions of the Bahamas. (Corbis, used by license.)
However, venerable Miami journalist Carl Hiasson began to dig into this case and many others. Dozens were vanishing in the early 1970s and many fit a different scenario. They were powerful cruisers capable of making long distances and carrying lots of drugs. Hiasson discovered that just before the Saba Bank left Nassau, the crew was seen talking to a couple of “hippie” or “drug” types. Another danger sign was that the vessel was not observed to have left port. This means it left early morning or at night.
The above suggests the crew of the Saba Bank could have done what was soon to be verboten— in other words, they took aboard extra crew.
Drug running was on the rise. The drugs were coming in from hot spots like Columbia and Central America. They were being flown in a la Blow, yes, but a lot of amateurs were using boats. There was no radar to worry about. No Coast Guard interceptors. No need for a specific landing field. Heavy luxury cruisers could make the long haul. Smaller day cruisers could ferry the drugs from the luxury yachts remaining off shore and bring them into isolated lagoons, beaches, mangrove swamps. Florida has numerous such places.
These type of pirates got aboard as extra crew, would kill the owners and then use the boat to run the drugs. Once they used the yacht, they would scuttle it and steal another. They never wanted to be associated with the same silhouette too many times.
Along with many other missing vessels, Saba Bank’s case inspired widespread publicity that finally led New York Congressman John M. Murphy (Coast Guard subcommittee for the House) to make some shocking statements in August 1974 that further served to put fear into yachtsmen. He said as many as 600 yachts had mysterious vanished since 1971, with 50 known to have been yachtjackings done by drug runners.
Yachtsmen stopped taking on strangers as crew. Prior to the early ’70s it was customary for boaters going to the Bahamas to take young college kids for free— “seagoing hitchhikers.” Too many feared hijackers now. Imamou was a recent case in point. The owners had taken aboard two men as crew without knowing they were wanted for drug running. Their vessel eventually ended up in Guadaloupe minus the owners but with the pirate crew. Both men were arrested.
Was that the fate of the 4 men aboard Saba Bank? Were they murdered and the luxury yacht used for drug running?
This is very possible. Carl Hiasson discovered that the crew had apparently expressed their desire to head to Jamaica and not remain cruising the Bahamas. They were heading into more dangerous waters and they truly weren’t qualified to do that kind of sailing. They may have fallen prey to a solid pitch from a couple of drug runners who said they knew those waters.
Both from Pennsylvania, Cy Zentner and Elliot Cohen would be declared dead as of March 1974. The families of Tarquinio and Kaplan, both from New Jersey, would petition and receive a declaration of death for them on March 10, 1981, the 7 year time limit since the vessel left Nassau in 1974.
Many other vessels vanished in like manner as Saba Bank. Some fit the scenario— powerful vessels. Others did not. 
Some that fit:
The 38-foot Debra Lynn vanished in May 1974 with 2 aboard. They were fishing over the shallow Little Bahama Bank. The Ocean Ark, a 30-foot sports fisherman with 5 aboard near Jamaica, January 1973. The 75-foot trawler Kat Mai in the Gulf of Mexico, February 1972. Sun Islander, a 32-foot cabin cruiser, November 1972, between St. Thomas and St. Martin. October 1972, Miss Scottie II, a 29-foot cabin cruiser, Miami to Freeport, Bahamas. Tecumseh, a 75-foot trawler, Mexico to Grand Cayman Island, 1972. The ABC, a 52-foot cargo vessel, Nicaragua to Kingston, Jamaica, 1972.
Those that don’t fit:
Cygnus, a 54-foot ketch which vanished in June 1973, between the British Virgin Islands and Aruba. A 25-foot cabin cruiser with 3 aboard on a fishing trip, which vanished in the Florida Straits in August 1973. December 1972 the 214-foot Puerto Limon in cargo from Houston, Texas, to Costa Rica (12 crew). The Power, a 22-foot cruiser off Grenada on a fishing trip, 1972. The Trinity, another 22-foot cruiser, Curacao to Grenada.
There are many others. I think the point has been made. Mystery in all of them, but suspicion in some of them that piracy was committed in order to get the powerful cruiser to haul drugs long distance. The smaller power boats, once again, to ferry to shore.
Regardless of favorite theories and suspicions, mystery remains. After all, anything could have happened, from the fantastic to the mundane. The mystery of The Bermuda Triangle is created by this one undeniable clue: it happens to so many, without trace, without SOS, and without reason. Disappearances happened long before and they still happen today. Airplanes vanish too.
The long litany of the missing is enough to make even the most hardened skeptic wonder. Then add to this another curious fact: that in 50 years or more no one has ever found wreckage, even on the very shallow banks of the Bahamas where most vanished.
We learn from mystery. We do not learn from things already discovered. Seek out mystery. It is an indication that there is something new to be learned. Seek to solve. The answer to disappearance is the hardest to be found.
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