Duncan MacDonald — along with his wife, Julie, and two young daughters — spent more than a year building the sailboat from scratch. Baptized by his daughters as “Salor Do That”, the boat’s maiden voyage was set for this Father’s Day weekend in the waters of the Sunshine Coast. But their plans failed when the boat went missing early Friday morning, less than a day after they completed it. In a Post on FacebookThe family says the boat – a 14-foot flat-bottomed white-bottomed boat with a white bow from the bow to the stern and a blue sail on its mast – was stolen from the boat’s trailer near Fraser Street and King Edward Avenue, from their home in East Vancouver. The post was widely reported and the local media also covered the story. On Saturday, Julie MacDonald said the Vancouver Police Department called her husband to say she had received multiple reports of the boat paddling in False Creek, downtown Vancouver. He said the VPD sailors ‘unit towed the boat and transported it to the Canadian Coast Guard station in the city’ s Kitsilano district. “He must have been on an adventure for the last 48 hours, but we’re really happy he was recovered,” Julie MacDonald told CBC News late Saturday. The boat was spotted at the Canadian Coast Guard station in Vancouver’s Kitsilano district after police discovered it. (Julie MacDonald) The VPD did not immediately respond to inquiries into who owned the vessel and whether there was a criminal investigation into its disappearance and recovery. McDonald said the Salor Do That is damaged but can be repaired. The trailer was not recovered. She said she and her family are grateful to everyone who saw the social media post or media stories and watched the boat. “It was an emotional project for us and my first response was, ‘Please look at our boat, keep your eye out,’ but people responded like, ‘No, we’re getting this boat back,’ and they answered almost as much. “emotion even if we felt it,” he said. “And he took the boat back and I’m incredibly happy. It just adds to the history of this boat, so yes, we’re very happy.”
