Scientist is Missing After Day Trip on His Yacht: S.F. MAN’s WORK PAVED WAY FOR E-COMMERCE
By Mary Anne Ostrom, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.
Jan. 30–A pioneering Bay Area computer scientist is missing after he left Sunday morning for what he told family was a day sailing trip to the Farallon Islands to dispose of his mother’s ashes.
Jim Gray, 63, founder and manager of Microsoft’s Bay Area Research Center, had left early Sunday in his 40-foot C&C yacht, Tenacious, from a marina near San Francisco’s Fort Mason.
A U.S. Coast Guard spokeswoman said Gray called a family member on his cell phone about 10:30 a.m. to say he was sailing out of cell-phone range and would call when he returned in range. His wife reported him missing shortly after 8:30 p.m. Sunday when he did not show up and calls to his cell phone went unanswered.
Well-known in Silicon Valley database software circles, Gray was awarded the prestigious A.M. Turing Award — the so-called “Nobel Prize of computer science” — in 1998 for his body of work, which helped pave the way for automated-teller machines, computerized airline reservations and e-commerce.
Over the years, he moved from jobs at IBM, Tandem Computers and DEC, and, eventually, to Microsoft in 1995. And he became an avid sailor, often heading out alone.
Lt. Amy Marrs called Gray’s disappearance “a mystery.” The weather was good, Gray is in good health, and the boat was equipped with radios and flares. There have been no distress signals.
“This one is unusual,” Marrs said. “There has been no sightings of Jim Gray or the vessel. Based on his experience and the reports of the good condition of his boat, we have no clues.”
By Monday night, the Coast Guard had called in a long-distance C-130 cargo plane to help in searching 4,000 square miles of the Pacific. The search stretched nearly 90 miles west of the Golden Gate, and from Point Ano Nuevo in the south to Tomales Bay in the north. Harbor masters throughout the region have been asked to be on the lookout for Gray.
Gray’s friends and colleagues grew more worried Monday night, even driving to the Gashouse Cove Marina to verify that his slip remained empty. It was, and his car was still in the parking lot.
They also exchanged bits of information while trying to deduce what happened. Several years ago, Gray had to abort a solo trip up the coast to Seattle when his engine failed and he became seasick. He had gone only 100 miles.
“I’m optimistic. He’s a good sailor. Maybe he pulled into a cove somewhere,” said longtime friend Michael Blasgen, who used to sail with Gray and work with him at IBM. He said he believed Gray, who lives in San Francisco, went out on Sunday to scatter his mother’s ashes.
His daughter told KNTV (Ch. 11) that her father called her from the boat on Sunday and told her it was a beautiful day. He was about 15 miles outside the bay, he told her, and had spotted dolphins.
The Farallones are 27 miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge. Blasgen said Gray often sailed alone. He bought Tenacious about 10 years ago in Southern California and sailed it up to San Francisco. Blasgen said Gray chose a C&C yacht because they’re known to be sturdy.
“His dream was to live in San Francisco, work in San Francisco and sail in San Francisco Bay. He achieved his dream, but one of those choices seemed to have got him in deep trouble,” Blasgen said.
Gray holds the distinction of being the first recipient of a doctorate degree from the University of California-Berkeley’s computer-science department. That was in 1969.
Recently Gray had been working to create a worldwide telescope — a distributed database of astronomy information. He also was helping to build a digital library that would include the world’s scientific literature and data.
“Our thoughts are with Jim and his family as we hope for his safe return,” said Doug Free, a Microsoft spokesman.
Mercury News Staff Writer Elise Ackerman contributed to this report. Contact Mary Anne Ostrom at mostrom@mercurynews.com or (415) 477-3794.
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Copyright (c) 2007, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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