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Man clinging to piling rescued from Cowichan Bay after skiff overturns

Search and rescue members found the man under a dock after locating the overturned aluminum skiff in the bay
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Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue crew members tow the aluminum skiff back to Fisherman’s Wharf in Cowichan Bay on Saturday. The vessel owner was transported to hospital by paramedics. VIA RCMSR

A man was rescued after being found clinging to a dock piling in the frigid waters of Cowichan Bay on Saturday.

Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue said its Cowichan Bay Station 34 received reports of a capsized vessel and a person in the water, but had little other information to go on.

The crew started searching the bay north of the marina.

Conditions were calm, and the crew was able to quickly spot an overturned aluminum skiff.

There was no sign of the missing man, so the crew headed toward the Pacific and Industrial Marine docks, the closest point of land.

There, they found the man in a hypothermic state in the water holding on to a piling beneath the dock.

He was pulled into the rescue boat and transported to a waiting ambulance at Hecate Park.

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