Too Smart to Take the Bait, Sailors Survive a Sinking

--Two fishermen adrift in a 3-by-4-foot bait box threw out the only food they had--bait fish they felt was so salty it would cause them to dehydrate--in a desperate bid to stay alive. “You want to stay alive. After 24 hours, you’re not hungry,� said John McNeil, 31, who was rescued with companion Donald Williamson, 40, off Cedar Key, Fla., after a harrowing six days afloat. McNeil’s boat, the Juma 3, sank so quickly last Tuesday that there was no time for the men to send off a distress signal or grab anything other than two bait boxes. McNeil and Williamson sat in one box and the third member of what was to be a shark-fishing expedition, Fred White, 37, sat in the other. White, who is still missing, paddled off in his wooden box when he saw a shrimp boat in the distance and the men lost sight of him in a subsequent squall. Two Coast Guard planes and a helicopter scanned 1,200 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico for White, then suspended the search late Monday. McNeil was treated at a hospital for dehydration and severe sunburn while Williamson refused medical treatment.

--With her stuffed mascot Ace-a-Ruff-Ruff by her side, 9-year-old Emma Houlston entered the record books as the youngest person to pilot a plane across Canada. The Medicine Hat, Alberta, girl and her father, Paul Houlston, left Vancouver, British Columbia, on July 10 and arrived Sunday at St. John’s, Newfoundland. While brushing off reporters’ questions about the trip, the youngster admitted she didn’t think she would try it again. The entire flight in the single-engine Grumman aircraft was videotaped to show that Emma piloted the plane herself.

--Like many sites of historic interest, it was destined for the bulldozer to make way for new homes. But a South Carolina preservation group determined to save the Snee Farm home of Charles Pinckney, who, at 29, was the youngest signer of the U.S. Constitution, raised the funds necessary to purchase the $2-million property. The Friends of Historic Snee Farm said they plan to turn over the two-story wood frame house, which dates to 1754, and the surrounding 25 acres in Mt. Pleasant to the National Park Service. “This is a wonderful time for the state of South Carolina because you’re preserving a piece of our state that cannot be duplicated and cannot be replicated,� Gov. Carroll A. Campbell Jr. said at a ceremony announcing the purchase.