Audio reveals missing Chinese sailor encountered gusts, sharks

Chinese mariner Guo Chuan stands on his trimaran during a non-stop trans-Pacific voyage from San Francisco to Shanghai. (Photo: China News Servcie/ Liu Dan)

(ECNS) -- In his last voice recording before losing contact with the support team, Chinese sailor Guo Chuan who was on a solo trans-Pacific voyage, revealed that he had encountered sudden strong gusts on Monday evening and also met with two sharks during his voyage, Beijing Times reports.

Guo, 51, was last heard of just after 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday Beijing time when his trimaran sailed 900 nautical miles off the west of Hawaii, Xinhua News Agency said.

His last audio recording was made at about 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday when located to the north of Hawaii, the paper said.

"No news is good news," he was heard saying on Monday evening. "Without preventative measures, there could have been a problem. Fortunately, everything is past now," he noted in reference to the changing weather conditions.

Guo also mentioned that he encountered two sharks, which were about one to two meters long. "I was lucky that they did not do much harm to the ship," he said. "Of course, I don't hope to see any whales, which would bring unpredictable consequences."

Rescue efforts are still on going. A search aircraft, sent from Honolulu, found the main sail in the water, broken off the vessel, but didn't see Guo on deck, and all attempts to contact the sailor have failed, Xinhua said late Wednesday.

Guo, a native of the Chinese coastal city of Qingdao in Shandong Province, set sail on his trimaran near San Francisco on October 18 local time, with the aim to set a new solo non-stop trans-Pacific world record from San Francisco to Shanghai.