The bodies of a British woman and her husband have been found washed up on an inflatable lifeboat, six weeks after they set off on a boat trip across the Atlantic Ocean.
Sarah Packwood and Canadian national, Brett Clibbery, were sailing to the Azores region of Portugal on their 42-foot eco-friendly yacht named Theros after leaving Nova Scotia in Canada on 11 June.
The couple were reported missing on 18 June and found three weeks later on 10 July on Sable Island, which has been nicknamed the “graveyard of the Atlantic” due to the amount of shipwrecks found there throughout history. The island is around 108 miles southeast of mainland Nova Scotia.
It is not clear why the pair had abandoned their yacht, a wind and solar-powered vessel, which they sailed to demonstrate how international travel is possible without the use of fossil fuels.
In a Facebook post, Mr Clibbery’s son James confirmed their deaths and said the last few days had been “very hard”.
He said the couple would be “forever missed”, adding: “There isn’t anything that will fill the hole that has been left by their, so far unexplained passing.
“They were amazing people, and there isn’t anything that will fill the hole that has been left by their, so far unexplained passing.”
Formal identification of the bodies is set to take place in the coming days.
Canadian police said a “multi-agency” investigation is under way into how the pair died.
Investigators are exploring whether the yacht was struck by a passing cargo ship that did not notice the collision, Canadian news website Saltwire reports.
An anonymous source said “the sailboat crew were either unable to avoid collision” or they could have been down below with Theros on automatic pilot.
It is understood that Canadian coastguard and military aircraft have not discovered the boat.
The pair, who lived in an eco-friendly home they built in Nova Scotia, said they hoped their 3,228 km trip would take 21 days.
The couple had dubbed their latest adventure “The Green Odyssey” to mark the yacht being powered by a battery from an electric Nissan Leaf car and six solar panels.
Ms Packwood and Mr Clibbery regularly uploaded videos to their YouTube channel Theros Adventures, where they would document sailing trips, walks and journeys across Canada in an electric car.
In a post about their planned Atlantic crossing which was shared on 12 April, Mr Clibbery said: “We’re doing everything we can to show that you can travel without burning fossil fuels.”
Ms Packwood added: “It’s probably the biggest adventure of our lives so far.”
In their final post on 11 June, the pair wrote: “Captain Brett and First Mate Sarah set sail on the 2nd leg of The Green Odyssey on board Theros – GibSea 42 foot sailboat. Powered by the wind and sun. Heading east to the Azores.”
The pair met at a London bus stop in 2015, before getting married on their yacht a year later.
They affirmed their vows in a traditional handfasting ceremony at Stonehenge in 2017.
Ms Packwood, who is originally from Long Itchington, Warwickshire, was an experienced humanitarian, who worked in Rwanda with the UN after the 1994 genocide.
In an interview with The Guardian in 2020 Mr Clibbery said his wife was “an amazing lady who never lets anything get in her way. Not even months of sea sickness when we went sailing”.
She added that her spouse “always challenges me to be my best self. He’s my soulmate and has a heart of gold”.
In April Ms Packwood told the My Camino podcast that the pair had a “failed attempt to cross the Atlantic in 2019”.