Aaron Bremner was chasing his passions of spreading Christianity and sailing when he disappeared Saturday after the sailboat he was working on capsized during a storm off Hawaii island.
“He was an amazing young man,” said his aunt Chris Mason by phone from her La Habra, Calif., home. She said Bremner was her “guardian angel” who talked her through some difficult personal issues last year and looked happy when they last spoke via Skype on Dec. 27.
Bremner, she said, had struggled with drinking and drugs before moving to Hawaii to join the missionary group that he was sailing with on Saturday: YWAM Ships Kona, which is part of Christian missionary group Youth With a Mission.
“He was just a lost kid, and he was searching for a direction,” Mason said. “He had so much energy, he couldn’t be contained.”
She said Bremner found peace after being baptized two years ago, and later discovered sailing through a relative.
Things began falling into place for Bremner while working as a crew member for YWAM Ships.
“He just found a passion for it,” Mason said. “He loved the sailing aspect of it. It just seemed like it was a wide enough space for him so he wasn’t contained anymore.
“He was such a big personality,” she added.
The ketch Hawaii Aloha overturned about 4 miles offshore, then ran aground a few yards off the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai.
After high tide moved the vessel and allowed firefighters to search all areas inside, firefighters found no one on the boat, a Fire Department release said. Firefighters said crews will continue searching from land and air Monday, and the Coast Guard said crews searched the water by helicopter and patrol boat Sunday.
Bremner was one of five crew members aboard the 75-foot sailboat when it capsized in high swells off Kona at about 5:45 a.m. Saturday.
“It’s horrible,” said YWAM Ships spokesman Phil Cunningham. “We’re staying focused on finding him and taking care of the people that were affected by this.”
He said Bremner, 24, moved to Kona about 15 months ago to join YWAM Ships and became a full-time volunteer crew member, receiving a $350 monthly stipend.
Bremner helped sail the Hawaii Aloha back to Hawaii from Micronesia about three months ago and was preparing to embark Tuesday for the vessel’s two-year mission to Christmas Island, Micronesia and Australia. Bremner completed YWAM Ship’s three-month course in seamanship in December.
Cunningham said the Hawaii Aloha crew took the ketch out Friday because dangerous weather conditions were threatening the vessel and tearing its mooring lines.
The crew tried to wait for the storm to pass, but a series of large waves hit the vessel broadside, flipping it two or three times, Cunningham said.
Bremner and two other crew members were sleeping in their berths at the time, and the crew couldn’t reach Bremner because items in the passageway blocked his door, Cunningham said. They also couldn’t hear anything from Bremner’s berth.
The captain, Ann Ford, and three other crew members escaped on an inflatable life raft and made it back to shore.
Cunningham said Ford, who has 20 years of sailing experience, was briefly hospitalized but was recovering at her home Sunday. She was the most seriously injured of the crew who made it back to shore. Ford is listed as the YWAM Ships Kona school director on the organization’s website.
YWAM volunteers were helping pick up wreckage debris along the coastline Sunday, said Cunningham, adding that the Hawaii Aloha had been stocked with supplies for its upcoming two-year mission.
During that mission, YWAM volunteers would have sailed to isolated Pacific islands and provided medical and dental work, water purification, food, a ministry for children and Bibles for the community.
Cunningham said the YWAM Ships-owned vessel, which appears to be a total loss, had 18 berths for volunteers. He said some volunteers had planned to meet the vessel in Micronesia, while others had planned to sail on the vessel from its home port in Kona.
“The ship was really a tool and a way to get to the places where we were going,” Cunningham said, adding that the group will still be able to continue its mission by flying to remote areas. “Obviously, it changes everything.”
YWAM Ships said it was the first marine tragedy for YWAM, an international missionary organization founded in Hawaii 54 years ago.
