Trader David O’Keefe leaves Hong Kong and is lost at sea.

What happened

O’Keefe, an Irish-born trader based on Yap, had dominated commerce in western Micronesia for about 30 years and was famed for carrying Yapese stone money from Palau in exchange for copra. He sailed from Hong Kong on his schooner Santa Cruz with two of his sons, two crewmen and a new agent; none were seen again, and Hong Kong court hearings on his estate concluded they were lost, presumably in a typhoon.