The Coast Guard is searching for a missing Chinese man, reported overdue while sailing aboard this 97-foot super trimaran from San Francisco to Shanghai, Oct. 25, 2016. Watchstanders at the Coast Guard Joint Rescue Coordination Center Honolulu received notification from Maritime Rescue Coordination Center China personnel that the vessel Quingdao China, with one person aboard, had not been heard from for 24 hours. (U.S. Coast Guard photo)
The Navy has joined in the search for a 50-year-old Chinese man missing from his boat about 600 miles northwest of Hawaii.
A Navy MH-60 helicopter flew over the Qingdao China, a super trimaran, Wednesday morning but was unable to hail Guo Chuan, the Coast Guard said in a statement.
The helicopter joined a search already underway by the Coast Guard with an HC-130 Hercules airplane, which had flown over the boat Tuesday. The plane crew saw no sign of Guo.
The USS Makin Island, an amphibious assault ship attached to the Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group and 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, has been diverted to the area to rendezvous with the Chinese ship to determine if Guo is still aboard.
The Makin Island departed Naval Station San Diego on Oct. 14 for a scheduled deployment to provide maritime security operations, crisis response capability, theater security cooperation and forward naval presence in the Pacific, the Coast Guard said.
The Coast Guard is flying out of Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point on Oahu. It received an alert Tuesday morning after Guo, the sole person on the boat, had not been heard from for 24 hours.
The Qingdao China is transmitting a beacon signal, the Coast Guard said. The sea is relatively calm in that area, the Coast Guard said.
Guo set sail from San Francisco on Oct. 18 in an attempt to set a solo, non-stop trans-Pacific world record by reaching Shanghai within 20 days, according to his web site, guochuanracing.com.
The boat was named after his hometown of Qingdao, a port city in China.
