Dead couple washes up on life raft, prompting investigation by Canadian police

Canada’s national police are investigating the deaths of two sailors whose bodies washed ashore on a raft in Nova Scotia earlier this month.

One of the sailors was identified this week as a 70-year-old man from British Columbia who set out on a scheduled voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in early June in his yacht, the Theros, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Monday. While they continued to confirm the identity of the second sailor, investigators were confident she was the other person known to have been aboard the yacht when it left Halifax Harbor for the Azores on June 11, police said. His sailing partner was a 54-year-old woman, also from British Columbia, they said.

Both sailors were reported missing on June 18.

Though police have not publicly named either of them, a family member identified the couple as James Brett Clibbery and his wife, Sarah Justine Packwood, in a social media post shared three days after the bodies washed ashore on July 10. The post was shared by a man who said Clibbery was his father and that his name is also James Clibbery. (The elder James Clibbery appeared to be going by his middle name, Brett, based on the vlogs he and Packwood regularly filmed and posted to their YouTube channel, called Theros Adventures, in reference to their yacht.)

“The last few days have been very difficult. My father James Brett Clibbery and his wife Sarah Justine Packwood have sadly passed away,” the younger James Clibbery said in the July 13 post. “There is still an ongoing investigation, as well as DNA testing to confirm, but with all the news it is hard to stay hopeful.”

The sailor’s son described his father and Packwood as “wonderful people” and said “there is nothing that can fill the void left by their, as yet, unexplained, passing.”

The couple were found dead in a 10-foot inflatable boat that had washed up on the beaches of Sable Island, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said. Sable Island is a small protected island in the North Atlantic Ocean, nearly 200 miles from Halifax off the coast of Nova Scotia. Investigators believe the inflatable boat was a lifeboat that was once attached to the larger Theros yacht.

According to Canadian police, investigators do not believe their deaths were “suspicious in nature.”

“Detectives from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police/Halifax Regional Police Integrated Criminal Investigation Division continue to gather information and analyze evidence to determine what happened at sea,” police said.

One theory, from Canadian news site Saltwire, suggested that a much larger vessel struck and damaged the couple’s boat shortly after they began their journey from Halifax, forcing them to use a life raft. CBS News reached out to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Clibbery and Packwood were keen travellers and sailors. In recent years, they have documented several joint journeys around the world on their YouTube channel, including several huge sailing excursions.

They had been promoting their transatlantic voyage from Halifax in the months leading up to their departure. In a video posted to their channel in early April, Clibbery explained that they had made upgrades and mechanical modifications to the Theros in advance of the then-upcoming sailing season. Those changes included installing an electric motor — they’ve talked a lot about reducing their carbon footprint in past videos — and mounting six solar panels on the boat to charge the engine battery.