Coast Guard locates one owner, searches for another after boats found adrift

The U.S. Coast Guard continued to search Portland Harbor on Saturday afternoon after a kayak was discovered adrift in the harbor earlier in the day.

The Portland Harbor search was one of two searches off the Maine coast Saturday after two boats were found adrift as a nor’easter churned up the ocean.

The Coast Guard searched Rockland Harbor for about a half-hour after a 30-foot Adair sailboat was discovered washed up on private property at about 7 a.m., said Petty Officer Geoff Potter.

The search was called off after Rockland police found its owner, Crandell Wesley, who had been living on his boat this winter, safe in Rockland.

The Coast Guard launched a search by 47-foot motor lifeboat off Portland Harbor after an unmanned kayak was found at about 8:30 a.m. washed up on the rocks near Cloyster Road in South Portland. The two-man kayak is red, Potter said. The Portland Fire Department also dispatched search boats Searchers were unable to retrieve the kayak. The South Portland Fire Department searched land in the area.

It isn’t know whether anyone was using the kayak.

It’s standard procedure for the Coast Guard to launch a search is a vessel is found adrift and the owner can’t immediately be accounted for.