This is exceptionally sad news.
Guo Chuan, the first Chinese sailor to sail around the world solo, was on a mission to break the Trans Pacific record between San Francisco and Shanghai when he encountered some difficulties and lost contact with his support team early in the morning on October 25. He was just seven days into his record attempt, well ahead of the Maserati's 2015 record, and support planes were immediately sent out to search his last coordinates off the island of Oahu.
The search plane found the 97-foot trimaran with its headsail dragging behind it in the water, but did not see Guo on deck. Even with the headsail in the water, the online tracker (which has since been taken down) was showing Guo's Qingdao China making between 10 and 11 knots.
Early in the morning (Beijing time) on October 27, Guo's shore team announced that the Coast Guard would send two ships with helicopters capable of dropping search crews onto the boat to investigate the situation, thinking Guo could be injured, onboard, and out of view of the search planes. Hours later, however, much hope dissipated when the Coast Guard crews boarded the Qingdao China and did not find Guo onboard. They lowered his mainsail, collected his personal belongings for his family, and started to search the surrounding waters.
#GuoChuan, may candles light your way back. People pray at his home #Qingdao after he went missing on solo trans-Pacific voyage pic.twitter.com/fOFEFruhkc
— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) October 28, 2016
After conducting six search patterns in the vicinity of the vessel and its charted course, however, the Coast Guard suspended the search. The Coast Guard had searched more than 4,600 square miles over two days to no avail.
Guo's shore team has offered two scenarios for what they think may have happened to cause the tragedy. Both involve him dealing with the issue of changing sails on the foredeck, at night, going between 13 and 20 knots when he had problems with the gennaker. The big question is whether or not he was tethered to the boat. Guo has stated in the past that his biggest fear is to be separated from the boat, but as multiple videos of him in action have shown, he was frequently moving around the boat without the tether.
Earlier in 2016, Clipper Round the World Race sailor Sarah Young was killed when a wave hit the boat and washed her overboard. She was also not clipped in to her tether.
The best place to keep up with updates from Guo's support team is via his Facebook page. They are currently soliciting support vessels who are in the area and can assist in the search attempt.
