Tragic End for British-Canadian Couple on Atlantic Sailing Voyage

A British-Canadian couple attempting to sail across the Atlantic have been found dead on an island off the east coast of Canada.

Brett Clibbery, 70, and his wife, Sarah Packwood, 60, were sailing on their 42-foot sailboat, the SV Theros. Their bodies were discovered in a lifeboat that washed up on Sable Island, Nova Scotia, according to a statement from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) published on July 12.

The couple departed from Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia, on June 11, heading for the Azores, a group of Portuguese islands in the mid-Atlantic, approximately 2,000 miles away. They were reported missing on June 18, and their bodies were found on July 10.

The reason why the couple abandoned the Theros and got into a lifeboat remains unclear. An investigation is ongoing, the RCMP stated.

Sable Island is a 27-mile-long sandbar located around 186 miles southeast of Halifax. It is known as “the graveyard of the Atlantic,” with over 350 recorded shipwrecks since 1583, according to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.

Clibbery’s son, James, paid tribute to his father and Packwood in a heartfelt post on Facebook.

“They were amazing people, and there isn’t anything that will fill the hole that has been left by their, so far unexplained passing,” he wrote. “Living will not be the same without your wisdom, and your wife was quickly becoming a beacon of knowledge and kindness. I miss your smiles. I miss your voices. You will be forever missed.”

Clibbery and Packwood described themselves as adventure travelers and documented their journeys on a YouTube channel named Theros Adventures. Their ill-fated voyage was part of what they called their “Green Odyssey,” aimed at demonstrating the possibility of long-distance travel without burning fossil fuels.

“We have an electric boat,” Clibbery said in a video posted on YouTube on May 13. “We charge the engine with solar panels.”

The couple met by chance at a bus stop in London in 2015 when Clibbery was in Britain to donate a kidney to his sister, they told The Guardian newspaper in a 2020 article. They saw each other daily for the next few weeks, with Clibbery helping Packwood care for her dying mother, and Packwood later caring for Clibbery after his kidney operation.

They stayed in touch after Clibbery moved back to Canada, and Packwood visited him on Salt Spring Island near Vancouver, where the Theros was docked, in spring 2016.

“He took me on my first ever yacht trip, and I loved it,” Packwood told The Guardian. “Brett proposed to me in the main cabin of the boat.”