[imagesource:facebook/therossailingadventure]

The bodies of a couple who set off on a sailing trip across the Atlantic Ocean have been found on a washed-up life raft almost six weeks after they were last seen.

Sarah Packwood, a Briton, and her Canadian husband Brett Clibbery are believed to have abandoned their boat and died aboard the life raft before washing up on Sable Island near Nova Scotia, Canada, on July 12.

The couple were reported missing on June 18 after departing Nova Scotia on their 13-metre eco-friendly boat, Theros, a week earlier. They were on their way to the Azores, a trip of around 3,228 kilometres and scheduled to take 21 days.

The pair’s last social media post was on 11 June, when they left the Nova Scotia coast.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police are currently investigating the death, but to date, there has been no further information on how the couple ended up drifting across the ocean on their life raft. One theory being flouted is that the sailboat may have been struck by a cargo ship en route without the bigger ship noticing.

“The sailboat crew were either unable to avoid collision” or they could have been down below with Theros on automatic pilot, an anonymous source claimed. So far there has been no sighting of the yacht or floating debris.

The couple documented their journey on a YouTube channel, Theros Adventures, and in one of the last posts, they explained how Theros would rely on sails, solar panels, batteries and an electric engine repurposed from a car during their journey, dubbed The Green Odyssey.

“We’re doing everything we can to show that you can travel without burning fossil fuels.”

“It’s probably the biggest adventure of our lives so far.”

The pair met by chance in London in 2015, when Mr Clibbery, a retired engineer, was preparing to donate a kidney to his sister. Their story was later featured in a Guardian article “How We Met”.

[source:bbc]