For those in peril on the sea

A twenty-five year old woman has been washed overboard from a Nova Scotia tall ship. The Picton Castle, based out of Lunenburg, is eight hundred miles off shore from Cape Cod. It had been sailing to the Caribbean.

As it happens, I know a very little bit about the Picton Castle. Erin Standing, a classmate of mine, at the very least was and for all I know still is a crew member on board the ship-she wrote a log of her experiences for the ship, which can be read here. She had been the ship's education officer.

I suspect, though I don't know, that she finished her voyage in June and wasn't on this particular run. I hope this is the case. If in fact I'm wrong about his, I obviously hope that she's still on the boat. Judging from the descriptions of the woman washed overboard, who's described by the CP as "having some experience with boats," I think that she would be-she's been on this particular ship for a while now, long enough to be more than "some experience with boats," or so I hope anyway.

In any event, I hope that they can find this woman in the next few hours. It's a terrifying story, and my thoughts are with the crew.

UPDATE: The woman was not anyone I knew. She's been identified as Laura Gainey, the daughter of Montreal Canadiens general manager Bob Gainey.