Interesting story. This man did a few right things to survive and with some luck, his life was saved.

VICTORIA — A shipwrecked American sailor was plucked off the rugged shores of the west coast of Vancouver Island Wednesday ending a five-day wilderness ordeal eating nothing but lichen.

Keith Carver, 56, of Tucson, Ariz., said he doesn’t think he would have lasted much more than one more day had he not been spotted waving his arms to attract the attention of “this beautiful helicopter.”

Google map of the area.

Nice to have an account where things ended well.

bravo. We may look sideways at the expiration date of food in our fridge, but when the expiration date might be our own, we'll eat anything.

It ended well, which is great. But it sounds like he was a hair's breadth from the opposite outcome.

He set off alone in violent weather, he wasn't able to send off an SOS, he lost his backpack of survival gear, and he was rescued only by the good fortune of catching the eye of an attentive pilot.

The winter storms up there, at the top of the Island, are impressively fierce. There's actually a tourist industry where people go (by land) to watch them. Personally, I wouldn't want to be on the water out there, but I'm no sailor.

P.S., a cement hull? Really?

Perfectly fine boats can be fabricated from cement. I believe it came into vogue during WW I because of steel shortages, among other times.

An outer coating of cement is also a last ditch measure for wooden boats that are on their last legs (or keels).

Doug, that sounds like fun, watching storms. If you have any info on it, can you post it? I put together a quick annotated, editable, google map of Carver's trip at www.gettingprepared.info

The only problem with concrete hulls is the collision insurance and how hard it is to find marinas that will allow them.
Concrete hulls tend to be heavy, lots of momentum, hard to stop, hard on docks and other boats.

I am glad he was found instead of lost.
I like them mentioning the wet suit. To bad he had been unable to shelter effectively or make a fire.
There is a reason it is called the wet coast.
They get a lot of rain.
That coast is a forager's paradise too.
Especially if you like mussels.

My understanding was most cement hulled boats went out of style many years ago due to issues with quality. Also, cruisers usually watch the weather and try to avoid passage in such weather when at all possible. He seemed to go out repeatedly in weather that his skills and his craft could not handle. Not to mention the rule that you never leave your boat until its underwater. Sounds like he got very lucky.

Seems there is bit more to this story since I posted it early today.

A shipwrecked American sailor who was rescued from the rugged, remote coastline on the West Coast of Vancouver Island Wednesday has been arrested and detained for being in Canada illegally, RCMP say.

He didn't exactly enter Canada voluntarily. There must be more to this than we know.