Nemeth was among seven people cruising around New Zealand on an 85-year-old schooner yacht called the Nina. After a big storm, the boat was reported missing. New Zealand authorities spent days searching and have officially have called off rescue efforts.
"Unfortunately, no sign of the vessel has been found," said the leader of the search operation, Kevin Banaghan, in a press release. "Our records show that conditions at the last known position for the vessel, on 4 June, were very rough, with winds of 80kmh, gusting to 110kmh, and swells of up to 8m. We do hold grave concerns for the Nina and her crew but remain hopeful of a positive outcome."
Nemeth, 73, was a retired professor from the University of Colorado at Boulder and an experienced sailor.
Besides working with Woz on scholarships, she is best known as the woman who literally wrote the book on Unix and Linux, training a generation of IT professionals on the operating systems that run today's biggest data centers. She also worked on some of the first systems that measure Internet traffic, and organized an international curriculum to train future Internet engineers.