Bob Mackin
The Canadian Coast Guard needed help from the U.S. Coast Guard to find a 26-foot pleasure craft, after a call late Aug. 5 from the only person aboard the vessel: an impaired male who admitted to a dispatcher, before 11 p.m., that “I’m a retard and I’m now lost.”
What happened
The Sea Island-based Hovercraft Siyay was one of two Canadian Coast Guard vessels in the Aug. 5, 2026 search. (CCG)
A dispatcher with Marine Communications and Traffic Services (MCTS) patiently conversed with the sailor, who provided little information, other than he departed Nanaimo en route to Madeira Park, a distance of around 30 nautical miles.
“Tell me which way to go,” the sailor said. “Get me back home, man.”
theBreaker heard the unusual call while monitoring multiple regional emergency radio frequencies on a night when crews battled a wildfire near the Village of Anmore.
How the sailor was found
(Google Map).
Lt. Marion Bec, a public affairs officer with Joint Task Force Pacific, told theBreaker: “Through search coordination and communications with the U.S. Coast GuardNorthwest District, the vessel’s likely location was narrowed to the southern portion of the Strait of Georgia, possibly near Nanaimo.”
The Canadian Coast Guard’s French Creek-based search and rescue lifeboat Cape Cockburn and the Coast Guard Hovercraft Siyay, from Sea Island, searched while MCTS maintained communications with the vessel. Cape Cockburn used a direction finder to locate the vessel in the vicinity of Sechelt.
“Once located, Cape Cockburn safely escorted the vessel and brought it alongside at the Halfmoon Bay Public Dock,” said Bec.
What next?
What was the vessel’s name? What became of the sailor? Bec referred theBreaker to the local authorities — the Sunshine Coast RCMP — who have yet to respond.
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