OARward Bound Rower and Santa Barbara High Grad Missing Following Rowing Accident
Tracy Lehr
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – A former Santa Barbara High School graduate and Marine is missing and presumed dead after a training accident on a Montana lake—just months before he was set to begin an ambitious, record-setting ocean row to raise money for veterans. Now, his twin brother is leading a private search and recovery effort, hoping to bring him home.
James “Dingo” Dominguez, 58, was training with the OARward Bound team to row 16,000 miles across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans in a multi-year journey from Morocco to Tanzania. The mission aimed to raise awareness and funds for nonprofits including the Wounded Warrior Project.
But on July 15, during a training session on Flathead Lake in western Montana, a powerful wave storm capsized the boat he was aboard. Two people were rescued, but Dominguez was swept away. His brothers, Jerry and Armando, are now searching for his remains after officials called off the official rescue.
“That wind was pushing the rowboat, and I don’t think he could keep up,” said Armando Dominguez. “So the challenge that we are having right now is the resources to go back and look for him.”
Jerry Dominguez said the crew took every precaution. “It wasn’t like they willy-nillied the whole thing. I have every confidence in the captain, the lead person on the boat. They did their due diligence with weather checks—everything they had to do before they got on the water for training.”
Dominguez, a 1985 graduate of Santa Barbara High School, was recently married and living in Wyoming. His wife’s life is now in limbo, awaiting confirmation of her husband’s death.
“I understood that he had to do so many hours of training—it was probably about 200-plus hours that he needed to get in to participate,” Jerry said. “The boat had just gotten wrapped, meaning they put the logos and sponsor names and so forth.”
Jerry has since created a GoFundMe page to raise money for a private search and recovery effort. The family plans to rent a boat and deploy a waterproof drone to resume the search.
This tragedy is the latest to strike the family. Loved ones say they are also related to the man who was fatally stabbed on State Street during this year’s Fiesta celebration.
Dominguez’s family is now taking search efforts into their own hands. The GoFundMe page reads:
“Our efforts were temporarily postponed due to limited equipment and resources, but the search will soon be back on — and I plan to be back out on the lake to assist personally.”
For more information about Dominguez and OARward Bound visit, https://oarwardbound.com