Coast Guard calls off search for sailor | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

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ASSOCIATED PRESS

Chinese sailor Guo Chuan, who was attempting to set a sailing record from San Francisco to Shanghai, was not aboard the vessel.

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COAST GUARD / AIR STATION BARBERS POINT / AP

The Coast Guard located a trimaran Tuesday about 600 miles northwest of Oahu.

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CORRECTS DATE OF PHOTO TO TUESDAY, OCT. 25, 2016 - This photo provided by the U.S. Coast Guard shows a trimaran that the U.S. Coast Guard has located in Hawaii on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2016. Guo Chuan, a Chinese man attempting to set a sailing record from San Francisco to Shanghai, has been reported missing from the yacht. (U.S. Coast Guard/Air Station Barbers Point via AP)

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This undated photo provided by Guo Chuan Racing shows Guo Chuan. The U.S. Coast Guard in Hawaii was searching Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2016 for Guo Chuan, a Chinese mariner attempting to set a solo sailing record from San Francisco to Shanghai. The Coast Guard located his 97-foot trimaran on Tuesday about 600 miles northwest of Oahu but rescuers searching from the air saw no sign of him onboard. (Guo Chuan Racing via AP)

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The Coast Guard called off the search for a Chinese mariner Wednesday night after a Navy team found no sign of him aboard his trimaran north of Hawaii.

The Coast Guard in Honolulu confirmed that skipper Guo Chuan remains missing.

Guo, 50, was attempting to set a solo sailing record from San Francisco to Shanghai.

The Maritime Rescue Coordination Center China contacted the Coast Guard in Honolulu on Tuesday after not hearing from him for 24 hours.

The Coast Guard located his 97-foot trimaran on Tuesday about 600 miles northwest of Oahu, but rescuers searching from the air saw no sign of him on board.

Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules crews conducted six search patterns in the vicinity of the Qingdao China and its charted course following notification of the situation Tuesday and continued into Wednesday.

The Navy diverted the San Diego-based USS Makin Island, an amphibious assault ship carrying 2,300 sailors and Marines, to investigate further. A boarding team from the ship said no one was in the cabin.

The boarding team from the Makin Island also lowered the vessel’s sails, said Navy Lt. Julie Holland, spokeswoman for the U.S. 3rd Fleet, based in San Diego.

Earlier, an MH-60 helicopter from the Makin Island lowered a rescue diver into the water, but the diver was unable to board the vessel because of 23 mph wind and 5-foot waves.

The Makin Island was en route to the Middle East on a six-month deployment when it was asked to divert a couple hundred miles to assist with Guo’s rescue because of the trimaran’s distance from shore.

In 2013, Guo was the first Chinese person to sail around the world solo, according to his website, guochuanracing.com.

His racing boat, the Qingdao China, has an automatic identification system that showed its location, Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Tara Molle said.

Guo left San Francisco on Oct. 18 to challenge the solo nonstop trans-Pacific world record. The current speed record for that journey is 21 days, and he was trying to sail from San Francisco to Shanghai within 20 days, the website says.

Coast Guard Capt. Robert Hendrickson called Guo “a professional mariner with a deep passion for sailing.”

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.