The mother of a charter boat captain who is believed to have drowned when the vessel sank on Sunday, June 28, told Global News that he had a lot of experience on boats.
Ashley Lin’s 23-year-old son, Ming Chen, was on board the 30-foot boat that went down in deep waters off the coast of Richmond with 10 people aboard.
His body, along with five others, has not been recovered.
“He is a nice kid. He is very loving, very kind-hearted… He’s very warm-hearted,” Lin told Global News.
She said that when she learned of the news about her son, she felt like the sky fell on her.
“I was told that there were four survivors, that six people were missing and Ming Chen was one of them,” she said.
Even after hearing the news, Lin and Chen’s girlfriend, Hailey Lee, continued to look, as they felt the missing people were still alive.
“We not only searched the area where the boat sank, but we also searched the Delta area because that day was really, really windy,” Lin said.
A vigil was held on Sunday night by the water to honour the six missing people.
Lin wore her son’s jacket to the vigil on Sunday night so that he could still find her, she said.
“He was a very independent kid; I’m not really a good mom; he was the one who took care of the whole family,” she said.
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While Chen was only 23, his mom said that he had been fishing for 10 years and had a lot of experience on boats.
“He has had a lot of experience with boating, with operating the boat,” Lin explained.
She added that her son did not talk a lot about his work at Top Fishing Charter, but when he moved to Vancouver a few years ago, he started working with the owner.
Global News reached the owner of the boat by phone on Monday afternoon.
He said he could not answer any questions about the sinking or the condition of the boat.
“The owner found (my son) to be very smart and also he could tell that he really loved fishing, so he started asking him to help out on the boat,” Lin said.
“He loved his job, and he enjoyed taking people out fishing. Because I didn’t know much, so he didn’t really share many details with me, but sometimes he did mention that the boat wasn’t very easy to operate.”
Lin added that her son had mentioned that the owner was going to provide training for him, but he did a lot of research on his own.
She said she hasn’t really spoken to the owner.
“I am just one person,” she said. “I hope he could help to find all the six missing people and also I want to find out how this happened.
“I think he is responsible.”
It has been reported that none of the people on board were wearing life jackets, but Lin said she believes her son did all he could to avoid the tragedy.
RCMP’s Serious Crimes Unit continues to investigate what happened.
“My only hope is for all the six people to come back home,” Lin said. “All the families are waiting for them to come home.”
The organizer of Sunday night’s vigil said he was friends with Chen and said he spoke to him on the morning of the incident.
“One of the victims is my friend, the captain; he’s a really good guy and he’s built up a lot of relationships in my fishing group chat and we really miss him,” Summer Guo said.
“We really miss him and we want to find out what’s going on, what happened, and we want to send our prayers and hope he could come home.”
Guo said they spoke over text that Sunday morning and Chen said he was taking a group out on the water.
“They were actually waiting for the wind to kind of slow down a little bit, for the waves to chill out a little. So yeah, it’s safer to go out, right?” Guo added.
He said Chen will be missed by everyone who knew him.
“He’s just a really good guy. I really miss him.”
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