Former owner of sunken B.C. vessel speaks, identifies the boat involved

The former owner of a vessel that sank in the Strait of Georgia, resulting in presumed drownings, has identified the boat as a 30-foot KingFisher named Big Coast. Tim Milne, host of the TV show Big Coast, stated he sold the boat more than four years ago and never met the new owner.

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I personally ran it four or five times up and down the inside passage, tuna fished it off Vancouver Island.

Milne described the vessel as a "super solid craft" that "deserved a better ending." He noted that while he never had 10 people on board, the actual capacity was uncertain. He also expressed concern over the lack of life jackets on the survivors, calling it a "major concern" and not standard practice for charter business on the B.C. coast.

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It’s a super solid craft, and it definitely deserved a better ending than it met… Completely tragic really.

The Automatic Identification System (AIS) was still connected to the TV show's name after the sale, as the new owners were reportedly uncooperative in switching it over. Milne recalled the boat being charged for illegal fishing in a Pender Island zone, with the AIS data used to identify the vessel.

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So, I think a number of people were surprised at the 10 people on the boat, and certainly the lack of life-jackets on the survivors was, that’s a major concern, and I mean that’s … not how we do charter business on the B.C. coast, so everybody knows that.

He has been in the marine industry on the B.C. coast for 25 years and has never witnessed an incident comparable to Sunday's event. "It's an incredible situation, and an incredibly tragic one," Milne said. Search efforts for the sunken vessel are ongoing, with challenging water conditions slowing the process.

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I don’t want to get into a lot of details, but the new owners weren’t being very cooperative in terms of us getting that switched over, and then last year that boat was charged, I guess you could say, for fishing in an illegal zone off Pender Island, and they had the AIS of the boat in there, and the shots of it, so that’s that’s how they, they caught the guys, I guess.