The trio were among 10 people believed to have been aboard a charter boat that sank near Roberts Bank on Sunday. Six are presumed drowned
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The people Brian Angus and Dorothy Stauffer helped save from the Strait of Georgia this past weekend could barely speak. They were hypothermic, slipping in and out of coherence, and not one of them wore a life-jacket.
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The only word any of them got out was: “Help.”
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With the seas running up to 2½ metres — too rough to even throw a life-ring — the couple did the one thing they could. They trailed their dinghy out on a 15-metre line, turned it into a makeshift life raft, and got three people to grab hold, one by one.
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The trio were among 10 people believed to have been aboard a charter boat that sank near Roberts Bank, about 10 nautical miles southwest of Vancouver International Airport, around 11:45 a.m. on Sunday, according to the local RCMP.
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Four people were rescued. Another four men and two women remain missing and are presumed drowned, turning the search into a recovery effort.
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Angus and Stauffer, a couple and sailing partners for 33 years, were aboard their sailboat Malaika on Sunday morning when Angus spotted a man in the water about a metre off the starboard rail, holding up a cellphone and waving. He then spotted two more. And two more beyond them — five people, with no boat or any debris in sight.
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Angus, a retired Air Canada captain, called in a mayday to the Victoria Coast Guard radio station, while Stauffer furled the sail.
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On deck, hanging on against the roll, Stauffer fell back on the emergency training she has drawn upon for 37 years as an Air Canada flight service director.
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She went first for a woman screaming closest to the boat, who reached the dinghy and clung to its stern. The couple then circled back for the two men. One was floating on his back, his shirt lost in the waves, Stauffer figured. The other was barely responsive, and Angus had to swing the dinghy line around until it caught the man by the neck and shoulders before he took hold.
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It took 18 minutes to get the trio to the dinghy.
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The people they helped rescue said almost nothing. When Stauffer asked how many had been out there, one woman answered her in English.
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“I’ll never forget the woman’s face in the water when she was screaming help,” Stauffer said. “That’ll be imprinted there for the rest of my life.”
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On Tuesday, Sing Tao Daily Canada reported that all on board the vessel were of Chinese descent and that news of the tragedy led to a flurry of reports and discussions on Chinese-language social media. According to Sing Tao, survivors said that the captain of the boat was at the helm when two massive waves struck the vessel. Water poured in through a side door and flooded the entire vessel.
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It quickly sank bow-first. There was no time to send a distress signal, and the missing four men and two women, including the captain of the boat, had no chance to escape.
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Citing people familiar with the matter, Sing Tao reported that the boat was an aluminum KingFisher boat and that the captain was just 23 years old.
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A Canadian Coast Guard hovercraft, the Siyay, arrived as the last of the three took hold of the dinghy, the couple said. Its crew lifted the men from the water and the woman from the dinghy, then cut the dinghy loose and took over.
