Coast Guard Suspends Search for Motorboat : Rescue effort: Two Camarillo men are reported to be aboard.

U.S. Coast Guard rescue teams suspended a search late Friday for a 22-foot motorboat reported missing Thursday from Channel Islands Harbor with two Camarillo men aboard.

Authorities said the boat’s owner, Bill Matlock, 29, and a passenger, Jerry Chavez, age unknown, launched the vessel from the harbor’s public boat ramp about 8 a.m. Thursday. Relatives told the Coast Guard that the men intended to go to Anacapa Island or Santa Cruz Island and return by early afternoon.

Matlock’s wife reported the boat overdue at midnight Thursday. The Coast Guard’s rescue operation began at dawn Friday and by afternoon had expanded to encompass 1,500 square miles--from Santa Barbara south to Point Mugu and west to Anacapa and Santa Cruz, said Marc Engelbrecht, commanding officer of the Coast Guard’s Channel Islands station.

Conditions in the shipping channel grew rougher during the day. By 4 p.m., whitecaps were visible in the channel and winds were gusting from the west at 15 m.p.h.

Channel Islands Harbor Patrol Capt. Jack Peveler said many boats returned to the harbor Friday after seeing the conditions.

“The weather here can be very calm in the morning and change in the matter of an hour,” he said. “The channel is notorious for getting rough in a short time.”

Peveler speculated that because Matlock and Chavez were in a small craft, they might have decided to stay in the boat overnight, waiting for the sea to calm.

“I think that would be the most hopeful thing to think of,” Peveler said. “If they’d gone to the islands, they would have tried to find a safe anchorage.”

The Coast Guard searched the Santa Barbara Channel until sundown Friday with boats, a helicopter and two planes, including a jet from San Diego.

After sundown, a jet was planned to continue searching through the night looking for flares that may have been launched, but lack of visibility halted the effort. The search was expected to continue all day today, a Coast Guard official said.

Matlock’s yellow pickup truck and the boat trailer were still in a parking lot near the boat ramp Friday afternoon. A parking ticket and note from the Coast Guard were under the windshield wiper. And a note signed by his wife, Traci, had been placed on the steering wheel.

“Bill, where are you? Please call me now!” it said.

Engelbrecht said it is not uncommon for boats to be reported overdue. Since Oct. 1, the Coast Guard station at Channel Islands Harbor has launched rescue operations for 13 boats. Of those, only one, the 41-foot fishing boat Vil Vana, has not been found.

“We take quite a few (reports) and most of them turn out to be nothing,” he said.

The Vil Vana disappeared mysteriously off Santa Cruz Island on April 9 with seven men aboard. No sign of the men or the boat was found despite an intensive 42-hour search.

In addition to the search for the latest missing boat, which was identified as the Tracy Lynn, the Coast Guard on Friday responded to several other calls of vessels in distress.

About 9:15 a.m., a 25-foot motorboat called Therapy reported a battery explosion that left the vessel without power. On board were six children and three adults, including the owner, Michael Howard of Malibu. No one was injured.

The Coast Guard cutter Point Carrew towed the boat, which was stranded east of Santa Cruz Island, to the Channel Islands Harbor.