Canadians rescued from broken sailboat after 20 days at sea
Two people with no food or water were rescued from a sinking sailboat off the BC coast this month in what’s being described as a fateful stroke of luck.
The man and woman were stuck at sea for 20 days and ran out of food, water, and power. They endured four storms that broke off the sailboat’s mast and ripped away the motor, drifting more than 200 kilometres off course before the pilot of a passing cargo ship saw their final flare.
“Just a matter of right place, right time,” Capt. Hans-Peter Jessen told Daily Hive in an interview. “Very fortunate.”
Jessen was guiding the Jiangmen Trader, a Chinese shipping vessel, up the Inside Passage from Vancouver to Kitimat. On the morning of January 17, just as the sun was rising, he noticed what looked like a piece of styrofoam in the water near McInness Island off the coast of Bella Bella in Northern BC.
A dismasted sailboat, between 20 and 25 feet long, was spotted near McInnes Island along BC’s North Coast on January 17, 2025. (BC Coast Pilots)
Jessen wouldn’t have thought anything of the small white object until he saw a parachute flare. And the people aboard the boat were lucky he did. There were others on the ship’s bridge that morning, but Jessen was the only one to notice the flare.
After alerting the Coast Guard, Jessen turned the cargo ship around and moved closer to the small sailboat. The other pilot aboard, Capt. Kenneth Wright, got the Jiangmen Trader’s crew to ready one of its lifeboats to approach the sailboat.
The crew of the Jiangmen Trader readies a lifeboat off the coast of Bella Bella, BC, on January 17, 2025. (BC Coast Pilots)
“I’ve done search and rescue for seven years, when I started my career,” Wright told Daily Hive. “I knew they’d want to feel safe… with something physical in front of them instead of a ship drifting around telling them to wait.”
The crew brought the first food and drink they could find — white bread and Coca-Cola.
When Wright and the other crew members got close, the couple said they fired off their last three flares, trying to get the Jiangmen Trader’s attention. They started with 17 flares but lit 14 when they first drifted close to the lighthouse on McInnes Island, thinking it was a ship. Nobody saw them.
“I said, ‘You’re saved now. You’re saved now,'” Wright said. “They said, ‘This is our home.’ I said, ‘Not anymore.'”
Time was ticking because the sailboat’s hull was breached. It was slowly sinking. Water was up to the bunks inside the cabin, and the boat’s generator was completely submerged.
The man and woman also had pets with them — a 100-pound dog and three kittens. They were living aboard the sailboat and had set out from Tofino on December 28 to Campbell River.
“Classic case of poor young people who have to live on a little crappy sailboat,” Wright said. “Because who can afford apartments in Tofino, right?”
Wright and the Jiangmen Trader crew stayed with the man and woman until the Coast Guard’s Cape Farewell rescue boat reached the scene around 9:30 am. The sailors boarded the Coast Guard lifeboat along with their pets. Coast Guard took them to Bella Bella, where paramedics met them at the shore to bring them to the hospital, a spokesperson for the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre confirmed.
“Incredible” that sailors got rescued along desolate North Coast
Cape Farewell approaches a sailboat during the rescue off McInnes Island on January 17, 2025. (BC Coast Pilots)
Both pilots there that day reflected on how fortunate the lifesaving encounter was. The Jiangmen Trader was supposed to take a different route up north but only changed course mid-journey because of a request for a different docking time in Kitimat.
Capt. Jake Spink, president of BC Coast Pilots, said he’s been on fishing expeditions along the North Coast and not seen another vessel for 40 days at a time.
“I’ve worked that area for many years. It’s amazing how desolate it is,” he said. “It was just incredible. It was just a good stroke of luck that they got rescued when they did. Because I understand they didn’t have much left in them.”
Pilots board any international vessels over 350 tonnes that come into Canadian waters. They know the local coasts and guide large ships so they don’t run aground or get into trouble. Cruise ships, cargo ships, and large yachts all need to be guided by pilots under Canadian transport law.
McInnes Island, where the Jiangmen Trader found the sailboat, is about as north as the southern tip of Haida Gwaii. It’s about 200 kilometres north of the northern tip of Vancouver Island.
McInnes Island is about 200 kilometres north of the northern tip of Vancouver Island. (Google Maps)
Wright saw the encounter as a tale of two young people chasing a better life who ran into incredible danger at sea without enough experience. They apparently did not file a trip plan, and Wright didn’t think the sailboat was suited for coastal BC’s turbulent winter waters.
“They headed off, I guess, for bigger opportunities. I don’t think they had much experience… he was very regretful.”
Wright added they were lucky the currents took them north up the Coast instead of out into the Pacific.
Daily Hive tried to connect with the man and woman rescued via the Coast Guard, but a spokesperson for the government agency said it doesn’t make connections between those rescued and media, so they referred Daily Hive to RCMP. The Bella Bella detachment said it received a report about the incident but didn’t have the sailors’ contact information.
McInnes Island lighthouse (Lise Desmanche/Parks Canada)
Daily Hive also reached out to Fisheries and Oceans Canada about staffing at the McInnes Island lighthouse. Canada has had trouble filling lightkeeper positions and, in recent years, has bumped up salaries to recruit keepers along BC’s coast.
A spokesperson said McInnes Island is currently staffed year-round with two lightkeepers. There are no cameras at the station. It functions as a navigational aid to support mariners travelling in the area by helping them confirm their position.
The pilots want to send their best wishes to the sailboat’s young occupants as they recover from the ordeal and get back on their feet.
“We really appreciate that everyone involved had a safe outcome because sometimes it’s the other way around, unfortunately,” Spink said. “They’re welcome to get in touch with us anytime as well. But I imagine they’re a little bit shell-shocked right now.”