20-foot Japanese fishing boat that drifted for four years across the Pacific Ocean following the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami was loaded onto a Japanese training ship Saturday to be returned to Japan in time for the fifth anniversary of the disaster.

“It is an amazing story, like a miracle. … This will give hope to those who are still struggling,” Japanese Consul General Yasushi Misawa said at Pier 31 Saturday

The boat known as the Daini Katsu Maru ended up at Alan Davis Beach on Oahu’s eastern shore on April 22 and became one of nearly 50 small boats and a personal watercraft from the tsunami that have been stored at the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Halawa base yard.

On Saturday the Daini Katsu Maru was lifted onto the top deck of the 186-foot Miyagi Maru, a Japanese training ship for high school fishermen.

On Wednesday the Miyagi Maru will set sail and deliver the Daini Katsu Maru to the newly formed Daini Katsu Maru Preservation Society, which will use it as part of a memorial about the earthquake and tsunami that will be unveiled on the disasters’ fifth anniversary on March 11, according to DLNR.

The Daini Katsu Maru took a circuitous path to Hawaii.

Computer modeling by the International Pacific Research Center at the University of Hawaii indicates it drifted for about two years, then got caught up in the so-called North Pacific Garbage Patch for at least a year before currents sent it on a southwestern path to Hawaii.

“The boat did not move on a straight line, as evidenced by the length of time it took for it to wash ashore,” DLNR quoted senior researcher Nikolai Maximenko as saying.

The Daini Katsu Maru represents the second piece of tsunami debris to be returned to Japan after DLNR and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration joined with Hawaiian Airlines to return a large wooden sign to Tanohata village in Iwate Prefecture in July 2014.

The boat originated from Ogatsu, a town in Miyagi Prefecture, and was identified by tracking down identifying numbers and markings through coordination with the Japanese Consulate General in Honolulu and Japanese government, DLNR said.

The Daini Katsu Maru appears to be at least 20 years old, said DLNR spokesman Dan Dennison, and had not been registered by its second owner.

The original owner — a fisherman from Ogatsu named Kiyoshi Ito — died 13 years ago.

In correspondence with DLNR, Ito’s daughter, Sanae Ito, wrote that the discovery of her father’s boat in Hawaii made her think, “It could be a message from my father to ‘not forget the Earthquake.’ … I know he would be so happy to hear that his ship is coming back.”

The Ito family lost their home and belongings in the earthquake and tsunami.

“I feel that my father is guiding his boat back,” Sanae Ito wrote to DLNR.

Just before Daniel Siu of Siu’s Electric used a crane to lift the Daini Katsu Maru to the bigger Miyagi Maru, DLNR Chairwoman Suzanne Case said, “This is a happy afternoon.”