Missing rower was part of round-the-world team
KRISTI NIEMEYER | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 1 year AGO
Waves crash on Flathead Lake in this file photo. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
Kristi Niemeyer learned her newspaper licks at weekly newspapers, beginning at the Mission Valley News in 1981, then at the helm of the Ronan Pioneer and, eventually, as co-editor of the Lake County Leader until 1993. She launched and co-published Lively Times, a statewide arts and entertainment monthly, before returning to the Leader in 2022, and serving as its editor until July 2026. Reach her at [email protected] | July 24, 2025 12:00 AM
As of Tuesday, Lake County Sheriff’s Office and Search and Rescue were continuing to search for James "Dingo” Dominguez, 58, of Cheyenne, Wyoming, whose non-motorized boat capsized July 15 on the turbulent waters of Flathead Lake.
According to Sheriff Don Bell, rough waters last week and again Monday were making search efforts more challenging.
Dominguez was training for an ocean-rowing competition aboard the high-tech, two-person boat called Cosimo. Two members of the three-person crew who were on the lake last Tuesday – Jayme Linker and Neil Lomas – were rescued and taken to the hospital to be treated for hypothermia.
A friend of the family, Michelle Leachman, told County17.com, an online news source in Gillette, Wyoming, that the group issued a Mayday distress call at about 6 a.m. near Wild Horse Island. The boat had capsized.
Linker and Lomas were tethered to the vessel, but Dominguez was not. She said one of them attempted to reach out with a rope, but by then, because of the weather, he was beyond their reach.
The Sheriff’s Office confirmed that the Dispatch Center did not receive a 911 call until around 9 a.m., and according to Undersheriff Ben Woods, “we had people in the water immediately upon our notification of the situation.”
The lake was rough last Tuesday. The National Weather Service had reported a wind gust of 43 mph at Glacier Park International Airport in Kalispell at 7:20 p.m., July 14, and predicted that winds would reach Flathead Lake over the next one or two hours “with an abrupt wind shift and very choppy conditions.”
A wind advisory was in effect until 2 p.m. Tuesday, July 15, for the Flathead/Mission Valleys, with northeast winds of 20 to 30 mph and gusts up to 50 mph expected. Wave heights of three to five feet were anticipated “especially along the south end of Flathead Lake.”
According to information on the website oarwardbound.com, Dominguez is a retired law enforcement officer and military veteran who “has spent his life embracing discipline, resilience and extreme challenges.”
The website also charts the trio’s journey, which was slated to begin in November with Linker and Dominguez rowing across the Atlantic from Morocco to Houston, Texas. Leg-two would cross the Pacific from California to Australia, and leg-three would navigate the Indian Ocean to Africa, covering 16,000 miles in all.
As of Tuesday morning, the GoFundMe effort had raised more than $26,000 toward its goal of $40,000 to help the family continue search efforts.
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