Father steals kids and sailboat, police say

(CNN) -- Authorities are searching for a father that allegedly stole a sailboat, abducted his two young children from their California home and sailed off with them.

"I want the Coast Guard. The Navy. Anybody who has a boat. Please look for my children and bring them back to me. I am afraid my children's lives," Jennifer Nipon , the children's mother told CNN affiliate KPIX.

The father, Christopher Maffei, 43, abducted his three-year-old daughter and two-year-old son from Hipon's south San Francisco home on Tuesday, according to the San Francisco Police Department.

On Wednesday, Maffei's rental car was found in the parking lot of the same Alameda marnia where a 44-foot sailboat had been stolen, police say.

Officers also learned that two weeks earlier Maffei and the children had visited the owner of the stolen sailboat and inspected the vessel to inquire about buying it.

"An extensive air and ground search was conducted ... but the vessel was not located," the San Francisco police said.

Nipon said she believes Maffei is headed to Thailand or Mexico because he lived in Thailand before and also said in the past he wanted to take the children to Mexico.

"He got a sailboat and he's somewhere out there in the ocean. I am not sure where he is right now," the distraught mother said.