Two Sailors Rescued in Washington

On Saturday, a couple was plucked from their floundering boat off the coast of Washington state.

After being struck by a rouge wave and flooded, the couple — who were en route from Hawaii to Bellingham Washington aboard a 46-ft sailboat — activated their EPIRB. According to a Coast Guard press release, the husband and wife had run into heavy seas and gale-force winds. The boat, Kelaerin, was not leaking, but was awash with frigid seawater. After a helicopter arrived on scene about 180 miles off Grays Harbor, Washington, and lowered a rescue swimmer, the aircrew hoisted the couple aboard “at the request of the vessel owners because of health concerns,” the press release said.

The News Tribune, an outlet based in Washington, included a link to a blog from a sailboat called Kelaerin, which had been cruising the globe for decades and was doublehanded by a husband and wife, but could not confirm if the boats were the same. Based on the video from the Coast Guard rescue and photos from the blog — both of which show a blue-hulled cutter — it does appear, from an informal visual ID, to be the same vessel. A blog posting said after leaving Washington in 1991, the couple was planning to return to Bellingham to complete their circumnavigation.

“A marine information broadcast is being sent out to notify vessel traffic of the adrift sailing vessel,” the Coast Guard said in a press release. “The attempted salvage of the vessel will be at the owners’ discretion.”

Also on Saturday, a man died in Berkeley after his canoe apparently capsized (Saturday saw gale-force conditions, though it’s not clear how the canoe flipped over). “A bystander on the beach reported seeing an empty canoe floating in the water about 5:30 p.m.” according to SF Gate, which quoted a Coast Guard spokesperson. The Coast Guard and Berkeley and Oakland fire departments did a search of the marina, and eventually found an unconscious — and as yet unidentified — man in the water.