Search off for Vanished Canadian Sailors

by Ethan Baron, The Province/Sail-World on 20 Dec 2007 Chris Malchow, 31, of Victoria, and Courtenay Steele, 27, of Saltspring Island, set out Sept. 8 to sail from Hawaii to Victoria, and vanished. They were due to arrive Victoria BC in Canada on October 16.

Now, after the Canadian Coast Guard and U.S. authorities have called off their radio-bulletin search, it is unknown whether the couple are dead, or alive and drifting somewhere in the vast Pacific Ocean.

'We don't know the routing of the vessel, we don't have any idea where the vessel is between Hawaii and Victoria,' said Marc Proulx, maritime co-ordinator for the joint Canadian Air Force-Coast Guard rescue centre in Victoria.

Malchow and Steele bought the nine-metre (30-foot) wooden sailboat Takaroa II in New Zealand in March. When they left New Zealand they appeared to be as well set up as many international cruisers, having on board an HF (SSB) receiver (but no transmitter is mentioned), 2 GPS's, a hand-held VHF radio.

Here is Chris's email describing their safety equipment:
' We’re all set for safety gear: harnesses (with built-in inflatable pfds) and jacklines; man-overboard equipment; EPIRB (emergency position indicating radio beacon); 2 gps; depth sounder; self-steering windvane; liferaft, flares and abandon bag; first aid kits (our lovely Canadian friends donated some expired seasick pills and heavy-duty painkillers, yay!); extra water in jugs; backup anchors, rope, sail cloth; full set of storm sails and para-anchor; and SSB receiver (for weather reports and time signals.) Plus we have our sight reduction tables and sextant, and a laptop with full 'CMAP' software loaded with charts for the entire world.'

They spent many weeks fixing the Tahitian-style ketch and, two days before they first floated it, Steele posted this message: 'I feel even more empowered, more exhilarated, more free and alive than ever.'

A first start, in early June, was aborted, after the couple were 'beaten by six days of headwind gale,' Steele wrote. 'We had no idea what we were doing, we were humbled.'

They set out again and reached Tahiti in four weeks. Along the way a wave swept Malchow, in a harness, overboard, and broke their mainsail's boom, the spar at the base of the sail. Malchow fixed it with a two-by-four.

Salt water ruined their small radio receiver and, when they sailed from Tahiti for Hawaii, they had no access to weather reports.

'Two hundred miles after setting off from Tahiti -- anticipating such a relaxed and tropical journey -- we realized we'd be going through a potential hurricane zone . . . and that August is the worst possible month. Ahhh . . . it's always something,' Steele wrote.

Then their mariners' VHF radio quit, preventing them from contacting other craft.

They arrived safely in Hawaii on Aug. 27. Steele wrote that she wanted to stay forever, but they had to sail on because winter was coming to the Pacific. The couple left the tropical paradise and have not been heard from again.

'This was an older boat,' said the coastguard's Proulx. 'It would have had very much difficulty going into any kind of wind.

'They didn't have any capability of getting any weather information while en route. With that type of boat you'd have to know exactly what the weather was going to be.'

Family members told the coast guard that Malchow was an experienced sailer, but Proulx, after reading the couple's blog, said he would describe Malchow's experience as 'moderate.'

'There are lots of things that can go wrong, especially in the deep sea. There's nobody to help you but yourself. Just think back to all the winter storms we've had. They would have encountered each one of them.'

Because the Takaroa II's route was not known, and Malchow and Steele had embarked on a 4,800-kilometre trip, a physical search was not conducted, Proulx said. 'It's a very large area, so there's nowhere to start searching. It's like finding a needle in a haystack.'

From mid-October to Dec. 15, rescue centres in the U.S. and Canada put out bulletins by radio and satellite, so Pacific-going vessels would watch for Takaroa II. Patrol planes also kept a lookout. No sightings were reported and the bulletins were cancelled Dec. 15.

The boat's emergency beacon has not been activated.

Proulx noted that earlier this year a disabled, unoccupied sailboat had continued to float off the coast of Washington state for six months.

'It just goes to show you things can be out there for a long period of time before anybody spots them,' Proulx said.

Just before leaving on the first leg of their epic voyage, Steele wrote that fear was a 'useless emotion.'

'What's the point anyway?' she asked. 'The world could end in a fiery Armageddon tomorrow, long before cancer or bird flu or crossing the ocean kills me. And then my last thought would be, 'Had I known this was going to happen, I would have taken that trip.'