The Search for James Gray

Link: Silicon Valley’s High-Tech Hunt for Colleague - New York Times.

A couple of days ago, Zephyr blogged the news that James Gray a computer scientist for Microsoft and expert sailor went missing off the coast of California in his red 40' C&C. Gray, a  winner of the Turing Award,  was a giant in the computer science community. It's amazing how the tech community has mobilized to try to find him.

One of his colleagues sent out a mass email to help in finding him and the tech industry responded. Sergei Brin the founder of Google got his Google Earth team poring over satellite imgaes. Amazon and Microsoft and NASA all joined together with Google to hep the Coast Guard scour the ocean for Dr Gray.

Although the Coast Guard have called off the search, his friends are continuing their satellite search.

The weather was calm and there is no trace of a sinking. He was carrying his mother's ashes to spread them to the winds at sea so there is a lot of speculation about what might have happened.