Canadian Sailor Rescued From Dismasted Sailboat off Oregon
A Canadian sailor was rescued on Friday after being dismasted and injured almost 500 miles off Tillamook, Oregon. The 74-year-old was singlehanding en route to British Columbia (B.C.) from Hilo, HI, aboard his 29-ft sailboat Alice when he ran into trouble amid gale-force winds and 30-foot seas: Alice was dismasted, the unnamed sailor suffered a shoulder injury, and the boat’s engine was incapacitated (it is unknown if this was prior to, or as a result of, the sea state and weather conditions). Fortunately the sailor was able to use his handheld satellite communicator to reach the US Coast Guard. The USCG’s Northwest District watchstanders launched a rescue operation, monitoring the mariner’s position while maintaining contact with the vessel.
The Coast Guard deployed a long-range C-27J Spartan fixed-wing aircraft from Sacramento, California, to reach the scene and provide aerial overwatch. Meanwhile the AMVER (Automated Mutual-Assistance Vessel Rescue) system was activated, enabling watchstanders to locate the nearest participating vessel and hail them for assistance. The 388-passenger cruise ship Silver Whisper was sailing from Tahiti to Vancouver and diverted its course 120 miles to reach the stricken Alice. A second C-27J air crew was launched from Sacramento to provide overhead communication and supervision.
Upon reaching the disabled vessel, Silver Whisper’s crew maneuvered into position to tie the sailboat alongside. A crew member then boarded Alice and helped the injured sailor aboard the cruise ship. The sailor was attended to by the ship’s medical team until their arrival in Vancouver.
The Coast Guard reports that the sailor had successfully completed the passage between B.C. and Hawaii four times previously. They praised the mariner’s preparedness, saying that he was equipped with sufficient food, water, a life jacket, life raft and a satellite communication device. “His foresight to bring a satellite communicator averted a tragedy,” Coast Guard Northwest District Search and Rescue Program manager Scott Giard said, expressing his thanks and appreciation to the Silver Whisper and her crew for their assistance in rescuing the injured man.
This video was shared, courtesy of the Silver Whisper:
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And what has become of poor Alice?
Yes, what happens to her next?
HI Jamie, we can only guess that Alice has been left adrift, like so many other abandoned sailboats. We didn’t want to draw attention to that unfortunate outcome.
Single handed and in the deep blue, not for the faint of heart
Having sailed that route myself, I can attest to the confused “square” waves in this area due to seamounts. Some only 100ft. Below the surface in the Cascadia Basin. And that’s in good weather. During a storm, this area could produce extreme rogue waves that might have overpowered the little Alice.
Hummm…my wife and I are retired offshore cruisers with over 50,000 miles in the Pacific under our keel. We made a similar voyage from Hawaii to Vancouver in 2006 in a heavy-built 46′ cutter-rigged sloop. Before we left on our voyage, we met an elderly Canadian single-hander in California who had done the loop from Canada down coast to California, over to Hawaii, and then back to Canada 3 times….in a very simple and light-rigged Venture 22 foot motor less sailboat. On one voyage, he got becalmed in a northern Pacific eddy and took 63 days to complete the passage from Hawaii to Vancouver. He was reduced to distilling sea water for drinking on a one burner stove and scraping crabs off floating styrofoam for nutrition. He never saw another boat and had only a VHF radio for communication. When we met him, he was on his fourth voyage and did not think that he had had any particularly remarkable sailing adventures. Your article suggests that elderly solo male Canadian sailors may, in fact, be a special breed.
Phil – we think all sailors are a special breed. We’re impressed by couples who have sailed 50,000 miles and by elderly, solo, male sailors from Canada. The North Pacific can be challenging and we admire anyone who challenges those waters. There are some very special female Canadian solo sailors too. Jeanne Socrates is amazing: https://www.latitude38.com/lectronic/good-jibes-64-jeanne-socrates/
Sailing across the Bay or across an ocean solo or with a crew makes all sailors pretty special to us.
Big shout out to Silver Whisper and her crew for a succesful rescue.
“When the men on the chessboard get up and tell you where to go ….Go ask Alice I think you’ll know”. White Rabbit
What kind of lackluster reporting is this, anyway? What’s the type of sailboat? Multiple other news sources report that the sailboat is named S/V April Alice, not “Alice”. Vesselfinder confirms such a sailing vessel at a similar prior route. The photos look like the sailboat is a …well, I wont write my guess of the sailboat, as I am unsure. A different and more informative news publication says that the sailboat was set adrift after the rescue, according to a first-hand observer of the rescue: ““Once the sailor was aboard the Silver Whisper with only a few of his possessions, his boat was set loose””
Hi JC, Thanks for reading. Yes, there were many unanswered questions. We didn’t have all night to look into every news report that has already been written. We did find one that suggested the boat name was April Alice, but one report out of the multiples we read didn’t fill us with confidence, so we stuck with just Alice.
Yes, it can be tricky try identify a sailboat from just a photo or two, hence our decision to not attempt that.
Social media has numerous accounts of the situation, so does AI. Neither fill us with confidence as to their veracity. We’d rather not contribute to the spreading of misinformation so we chose to use the official Coast Guard press release for our source. But hey, thanks for sharing what you believe to be true. And again, thanks for reading Latitude 38!
Glad everyone is safe. Very likely a Vancouver 27: https://sailboatdata.com/sailboat/vancouver-27/
The type of sailboat is a Vancouver 27.
Definitely, I own one myself and I recognize her.
To bad that the cruise ship was headed home, he could have had a nice cruise to Hawaii.
While volunteering on the Matthew Turner build years ago i wandered over to the Army Corps yard next door where I was shocked to see two 30 ft.sailboats on their sides on the rampway masts crossed awaiting “deconstruction”. End of the day and the last employee was exiting and locking the cyclone gate. I asked, “Is this where old boats go to die?” His response was, “the lucky ones.” Good luck, Alice!
Thanks for reporting on this. We’ve brought our boat down from Canada to Sausalito a couple of times now, and will be again (she’s up in Sidney, BC for the season), so I read it with great interest. It can be a rough trip! So glad to hear of the rescue, and I truly appreciate that you relied on the official Coast Guard press release!
A couple of corrections to the Coast Guard press release: The sailor was rescued on Tuesday, May 26, just before 4 p.m. I witnessed the rescue. The name of his boat definitely was the April Alice, a registered Canadian sailing vessel (MMSI: 316029344) measuring 8 meters (26.2 feet) in overall length and 3 meters wide. I can provide a photo with the name visible on the bow. It’s good to hear you’d rather not contribute to spreading misinformation, but in this case you have. I’m surprised the Coast Guard was not better informed.
Thanks for the update, Jeff.
I read a very interesting article about sailors over 70 single handing and insurance rates, seems older captains cost more money overall and are a risk to other ships. Also, the insurance world and other marine powers are looking at AIS data and seeing long set courses causing them to wonder if proper watch durations are being practiced.
I think that single handing voids most insurance policies, how much was he charged for this rescue?
https://www.sailnet.com/threads/the-solo-sailing-ban-why-new-2026-world-regulations-target-older-captains.354937/
April Alice is a Vancouver 27.
I read (in a FB post by someone who claimed to know him) that the skipper had suffered a broken bone.