GALVESTON, Texas – The Coast Guard along with a Texas A&M salvage crew recovered a deceased victim from the sailboat Cynthia Woods, the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed Sunday.

The boat was found 27 miles southeast of Freeport late Sunday afternoon. The body is believed to be that of Roger Stone, a safety officer for the Texas A&M Offshore Sailing Team.

He was one of six members of the team onboard the sailing vessel when it capsized in the Gulf of Mexico late Friday. Five of the crewmembers were rescued early Sunday morning.

The Coast Guard had continued to search for Stone, one of two assistant team coaches aboard the Cynthia Woods.

The first word of the discovery of Stone’s body came on a sailing chat room posting from his son, Eric.

“He’s gone,” the posting read. “Roger was found in the boat. He was a hero. He did his job as a safety officer.

“He got those kids off the boat.”

Stone and two other crewmembers were asleep below deck of the Cynthia Woods when disaster struck. Officials said the survivors told them when the boat began taking on water, Stone was quick to awaken crewmembers and tell them to get into their life vests.

“Our hearts and prayers go out to Mrs. Linda Stone, the Stones' two children and members of Roger Stone's family. Words cannot adequately express the depth of our condolences as they cope with the loss of their loved one,” R. Bowen Loftin, the vice president and CEO of Texas A&M-Galveston, said in a statement. “We hope they can take some comfort in knowing all five survivors of this tragic accident credit Mr. Stone with heroic efforts that were instrumental in making possible their survival.

“We now know that Roger Stone died a hero in the classic sense of the word.”

Those who knew Stone best said his heroism was evident every day in teaching boating safety to others.

“Roger was so instrumental in showing the Sea Scout Ship 150 Troop and the HLK Sailing Club out of Galveston so many things,” one close friend wrote in an e-mail to KHOU.com.

Keel failure is apparently what caused the Texas A&M-Galveston sailing team’s vessel to capsize.

Loftin said that the keel of the Cynthia Woods “just fell off,” before the 38-foot sailboat began taking on water. The crew had less than 30 seconds to get off the boat, officials said.

Five of the six missing members were found alive after spending more than 24 hours adrift in the Gulf.

Stone's body was found after a salvage dive team, contracted by Texas A&M, went into the sunken wreckage of the sailboat.

The six-man crew went missing early Saturday after their boat capsized 11 miles south of Matagorda. The crew was participating in a regatta from Galveston to Mexico.

Texas A&M-Galveston officials confirmed that the team’s assistant coach, Steve Conway, along with student captain Travis Wright, 22, A&M sailing club president Ross Busby, 22, and student crewmembers Joseph Savana, 18, and Steven Guy, 20, were rescued about 1 a.m. They were grouped together 23 miles south of Freeport, about five miles from where the boat capsized.

Their rescue was a relief to family members, who spent several sleepless hours in the dormitory at the university awaiting word of their loved ones.

But, relief doesn’t even begin to describe Mary Conway’s feelings.

“When somebody tells you (the crew is missing) your whole life just stops,” she said.

The anxiety was too great for Mary and others to sleep. Her husband's night, spent sharing four life jackets among five people, was similarly sleepless.

“If someone got tired, they switched, they held each other up,” she said of the crew's efforts to stay afloat.

All five were reported to be in stable condition and were taken to UTMB's John Sealy Hospital in Galveston.

U.S Coast Guard Chief Warrant Officer Lionel Bryant said that a Coast Guard helicopter spotted the survivors in the water because someone with the group had a flashlight and was flashing it.

“We then shined a spotlight down and the reflective material on their vests is how we were able to locate them,” said Bryant.

Texas A&M University Galveston Web site

This is a university photo of the members of Texas A&M -Galveston Offshore Sailing Team that is particpating in the Galveston to Veracruz, Mexico regatta.

Conway, a retired Coast Guard commander, was credited with keeping the surviving members of the crew together and for keeping them alive.

“From what we understand, Commander Conway was telling everyone exactly what the Coast Guard was doing to find them,” Texas A&M-Galveston spokeswoman Karen Bigley said. “It appears that they did everything right.”

That included staying as close to the boat as possible and forming themselves into a line rather than huddling up while in the water, said Bryant.

“If you think about it, when someone is in the water, their head is basically the size of a basketball and you have a vast (Gulf). It makes it hard to spot something that small,” said Bryant. By forming themselves in a line, they were actually more visible, the Coast Guard spokesman said.

But just how the keel came off the boat remains a mystery. A sailboat’s keel is a large fin that extends from the hull and is essential to the craft’s stability.

“Everything was normal and all of the sudden the boat began taking on water from the bottom,” Loftin said. “We don’t know why.”

The crew was participating in the Regata de Amigos, a 630-mile race from Galveston to Veracruz. Race participants set sail from Galveston on Friday and had to start the race from the jetties because of heavy winds.

Sailing team coach Jim Atchley, who was not part of the crew this trip, said that seas were running 3 to 5 feet and winds were in the 15- to 18-knot range when the Cynthia Woods set sail.

The Coast Guard said a phone call came in about 8:15 a.m. Saturday from the emergency contact for the Cynthia Woods who said that communication with the sailboat had been lost at about midnight Saturday.

Officials said that the university lost transponder contact with the boat at about 10 p.m. Friday. The crew also missed its 8 a.m. radio check Saturday, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Renee Aiello.

A Coast Guard air-team located the abandoned Cynthia Woods Saturday afternoon.

The Coast Guard reported rough seas when an initial search for the missing vessel was launched Saturday morning.

Seas were so rough that the first boat sent to find the crew had to return to its port in Freeport, the Coast Guard said.

Conway and Stone had participated in the regatta "several times before," said officials. The other crewmembers were also described as "extremely experienced" sailors.