Sailor Goes Missing During World Voyage; Boat Found with His Dog Onboard

There’s this really eerie story making the rounds about a British guy named James Nunan, who’s 34 and was out on this epic solo sailing adventure around the world. He set off back in March, but things took a dark turn recently.

His boat turned up empty near the Canary Islands on August 25th, with no sign of him—just his little Jack Russell Terrier, Thumbelina, hanging out on board all alone. She was okay, thankfully, and got taken to a local shelter on Gran Canaria.

His half-sister, Nikita Goddard, mentioned how the worry kicked in super fast. “It started getting really concerning almost right away,” she told reporters. James—or “Jemsie” as his close ones call him—had been chatting with family regularly until about a week before his boat was found. He’d been working as a bricklayer to fund this dream trip, aiming to head to Brazil next after some time in the Canaries.

It all started unraveling around mid-August. His mom last heard from him on the 18th, a Monday, and by Wednesday, she was starting to freak out a bit. Come Friday the 22nd, she officially reported him missing. That same day he last checked in, he did a Facebook Live from Playa del Confital beach in Las Palmas, wandering around and chatting with folks. Later, he hit up Paddy’s Anchor bar and mentioned to someone there that he was planning to sail over to Lanzarote.

Things got weirder that night. Around 10:49 p.m., CCTV caught him grabbing some food at a kebab place. While he was outside, someone swiped his backpack. He still had his passport on him, wearing it around his neck, and he went ahead and ate anyway. But the very next day, August 19th, that passport got reported as lost or stolen to the Irish consulate—odd detail, right?

A few days passed, and then there was this “pan-pan” alert about his boat sometime between the 24th and 25th. That’s like an urgent call for help, not quite a full mayday, but serious—maybe for something like a person overboard or the boat drifting into trouble. Sure enough, the boat, Kehaar, was spotted about 100 miles from where he was last seen, off Gran Canaria’s coast.

His family has been all over social media begging for any leads. His mom posted something like, “If you spot him, call him Jemsie—that’s what his friends and family use. Let him know we’re searching and we’ve got Thumbelina and the boat safe.” His dad’s even out there in Gran Canaria looking for him personally.

The British Foreign Office is involved, supporting the family and liaising with Spanish authorities. No one from the family, the embassy, or local police has gotten back to inquiries yet, but it’s clear everyone’s on edge. Goddard summed it up by saying it’s been absolute chaos, especially with her just having her first baby amid all this. “So many questions swirling around,” she said. “It’s been tough, to put it mildly.”