Salt Spring Island sailboat resident drowns in harbour

Salt Spring emergency crews perform CPR on a man pulled from the rough waters of Ganges Harbour just before noon Sunday. The victim's condition is unknown at this time.

Photo by Gail Sjuberg
Buy Gulf Islands Driftwood Photos Online

Salt Spring RCMP blame Sunday’s ferocious winter storm for the death of a 61-year-old island man who fell off his sailboat and drowned in Ganges Harbour on Sunday morning.

“The wind was absolutely incredible,” said Sgt. George Jenkins. “I’ve never seen anything like it before. It was just crazy.

“Definitely nobody should have been out there.”

Jenkins was tying up the RCMP vessel near the coast guard dock when the operator of an island-based marine salvage company arrived with a drowning victim just before noon on Sunday.

Richard Legallou, the long-time resident of a sailing boat moored in Ganges Harbour, failed to regain consciousness despite a fervent effort by Eagle Eye Vessel Assist, BC Ambulance Service, Salt Spring Fire-Rescue and Ganges Coast Guard personnel.

“The Vessel Assist people and the coast guard did a pretty heroic job of getting him in and onto the dock and doing CPR until the ambulance paramedics got there moments later,” said Greg Middleton, a witness who was in the harbour at the time.

Nick Boychuk, the owner of Eagle Eye Vessel Assist, said he and his crew departed their base at Ganges Marina around 11:45 a.m. in search of a vessel adrift when reports that a person was also in the water came across his VHF radio.

Boychuk’s crew located Sevens, Legallou’s double-ended 24-foot sailboat, between two private docks on the northeastern side of Ganges Harbour. Legallou’s body was spotted between his boat and the shoreline moments after Boychuk arrived.

“Our 35-foot tug went out to get the boat off the beach, and then my wife [Celine] brought the inflatable,” he said.

Boychuk and his crew loaded Legallou onto the inflatable and took it to the coast guard dock.

Sgt. Jenkins said Legallou showed no signs of life at that point. He said CPR was conducted because nobody knew how long Legallou had been in the frigid water.

Mark Coulter watched much of the drama unfold from his trimaran moored close to the shoreline where Legallou’s body was recovered.

“I saw the boat as it drifted underneath a dock on the northeastern shore of the harbour and called the coast guard on Channel 16,” he said. “The water was too rough for me to get into my rowboat to do anything.”

According to Coulter and many others who live and work by the water, Legallou was a reclusive individual who lived on his boat since the late 1990s.

”He was a pretty nice guy and pretty low-key guy,” said Coulter, who knew Legallou for nearly 20 years.

Coulter said Legallou built Sevens by hand in Calgary before moving to the West Coast. He said Legallou’s ex-wife and daughter still live on the prairies.

The owner of a boat moored near Sevens last summer recalled having frequent dinghy races to the shore with Legallou. The man, who asked that he not be identified, said he often invited his neighbour over for tea.

“But that was never really his thing,” he said.

Rod MacDonald, skipper of the Aqua Star 1, knew Legallou as a “quiet and reserved” harbour resident.

MacDonald spent most of Sunday on the water transporting BC Hydro crews throughout the southern Gulf Islands.

“It was rough and windy,” MacDonald said. “There was a good sea running. We were out all night.”

Outside his home office at  Ganges Marina, Boychuk said he recorded gale-force winds of up to 47 knots, or roughly 85 kilometres per hour. Several weather warnings had been issued prior to Sunday’s winds.

At its peak, the storm cut power to 2,500 BC Hydro customers in the Gulf Islands and up to 25,000 clients on Vancouver Island.

“It was a very intense storm,” said Ted Olynyk, BC Hydro’s community relation’s manager for the Vancouver Island region. “Usually they’re centered in specific areas but this storm covered the whole east coast of the island.”

The storm also caused havoc with travel plans as BC Ferries was forced to cancel several sailings between the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island. Additional sailings were added to Monday’s schedule to assist with the backlog of weekend travellers.

Heavy winds caused up to $50,000 of damage to the docks at Ganges Marina and blew several vessels loose of their moorings. Boychuk said the task to retrieve Legallou was his 11th call of the morning.

Jenkins said police are working with staff from the coroner’s office to recreate how Legallou ended up in the water.

“At this juncture we don’t know what happened,” Sgt. Jenkins said. “There’s a number of things that could have happened.”

RCMP say Legallou was not wearing a life jacket when his body was recovered.