A man balanced on the tip of his sinking boat in high winds and rough seas was rescued by a B.C. Ferries crew moments before his vessel submerged.
“You could see the tip of the boat sticking out and him on it and he looked awfully big relative to the amount of boat sticking out,” ferry passenger Robin Junger said of the Monday night rescue.
“It was pointing almost straight up and down in the water,” said Junger, who was travelling to Victoria from Vancouver, where he works as a lawyer specializing in environmental, administrative and Aboriginal law. “Most of the boat was under water and it seemed to be going down, down.”
Three crew members from the ferry Coastal Celebration, which was nearing Swartz Bay on its trip from Tsawwassen, scooped the man off the 24-foot aluminum vessel.
The man was wearing a life-jacket, Junger said.
Coastal Celebration was alerted to the boat in distress after a mayday call from the pleasure craft, which was sinking near Moresby Island, northeast of Swartz Bay.
The Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Victoria said it received a call for help at 6:29 p.m., rebroadcast it and dispatched a 47-foot motorized lifeboat and rigid inflatable boat out of Ganges Harbour. Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue boat No. 36 out of Sidney was also dispatched.
Coastal Celebration’s crew heard the distress call and responded as it neared Moresby Island, northeast of Swartz Bay.
“The ferry started slowing down and we could see some lights on the water and it announced a vessel in distress,” Junger said.
Onlookers were torn between two scenes, the man on the boat and the preparations for a rescue.
“It was horrible conditions,” Junger said. “I mean it was incredibly nasty weather and water out there.”
An Environment Canada wind warning had forecast gusts up to 90 km/h in coastal areas around Greater Victoria. Because of the wind, B.C. Ferries cancelled its 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. sailings between Swartz Bay and Tsawwassen.
“There were gale-force winds and four-foot seas,” said Dylan Carter, a marine search-and-rescue co-ordinator with the rescue centre.
As the clock ticked, passengers wondered if the B.C. Ferries rescue boat would even go into the water because the weather was so bad.
Carter said the rescue centre asked the captain of Coastal Celebration to turn the ferry to put lights on the sinking vessel and launch a rescue boat if possible.
Coastal Celebration spotted the vessel at 6:37 p.m., Carter said. The ferry launched its rescue craft, with three crew, trained as occupational first aid attendants, said B.C. Ferries spokeswoman Deborah Marshall.
“Up until that time, we really wondered whether he was going to make it,” Junger said.
The ferry was positioned to block the wind from the rescue boat and pleasure craft, Marshall said.
Once onlookers saw the rescue boat deployed, “then the question was would they get to him and get him over to their boat in time,” Junger said.
Two searchlights were on the man, but sometimes one of the lights would shine elsewhere, leaving some passengers worried that someone else was in the water. That proved unfounded, however.
“It was very scary and dramatic,” Junger said. The vessel sank moments after the man was rescued, he said. “It was just awful. It was very dramatic and I think very risky for the guys who were out doing the rescue.”
Junger said it was an impressive save and a credit to the ferry’s crew.
The rescue centre was told at 6:49 p.m. that the man had been retrieved.
Other rescue boats then stood down, Carter said.
Performing a rescue in such weather conditions is extremely challenging, Marshall said. “If the captain and crew had deemed it too risky to perform this rescue, they would have left it to the coast guard,” she said.
“It does put our crew in danger, and they certainly acted professionally last night. We are very proud of the way they were able to assist this person in distress.”
No one was injured, she said.
Citing privacy concerns, Marshall declined to give the names of the employees who made the rescue.
The Coastal Celebration rescue boat raced the man to a government dock at Swartz Bay, where emergency crews and an ambulance were waiting.
“For a while there, I didn’t think it was going to end that way,” Junger said.
