Four men and two women are presumed to have drowned in the sinking of a fishing charter boat off Richmond, B.C., on Sunday, RCMP said, as a police underwater team prepared for a deep-water search for the downed vessel in the Georgia Strait.

Richmond Mounties said two survivors, a 33-year-old man and a woman, 28, were in critical condition, while another man, 26, and woman, 33, have been discharged from hospital.

The search for the six others was suspended at 9:45 p.m. Sunday, and RCMP said efforts had moved to recovery.

“The RCMP Underwater Recovery Team has been engaged and will attend the area in the coming days to locate the capsized vessel using sonar,” police said.

“Their assessment of the conditions will determine whether a dive operation is feasible, or whether alternate resources, such as a remotely operated vehicle may be required.”

They added that the vessel was believed to have gone down “in very deep waters.”

Police said the cause of the sinking was not known and it was under investigation.

A rescue official said no one aboard the boat was wearing a life-jacket, limiting survival chances for the six who were still missing and resulting in the search being called off.

BC Ferries said in a statement that its Queen of Alberni vessel had responded to “a sighting of five individuals in the water north of Tsawwassen” and assisted in the search, but did not retrieve anyone from the water.

Major Gregory Clarke of the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Victoria said Monday that the four who were pulled from the water less than an hour after the boat sank around noon on Sunday were already hypothermic.

The survivors were spotted by a sailing boat that sent out a mayday, triggering a massive search that the Mounties said involved agencies including the RCMP, the air force, coast guard, Marine Search and Rescue, and BC Ferries.

“From our end of things, it’s a tragic event,” Clarke said. “We are confident that we covered the area very thoroughly. We had a great response from all of our assets, and just an unfortunate reminder that flotation devices can really make a difference.”

The FlightAware online flight tracker showed that an air force plane flew in a grid pattern over the search area for about seven hours on Sunday before returning to Comox Airport around 8 p.m.

Clarke said people can survive five to 10 hours if they are wearing a flotation device, but without one the ability to tread water and survive is “cut very short,” given the currents and water temperatures.

He said conditions in open waters were “pretty unforgivable.”

Clarke said calling off a search was a heavy responsibility.

“We don’t take it lightly, but basically, through all of the avenues, we exhausted all possibilities of finding anyone on the surface alive, and the reports of no flotation devices likely shortened survivability,” he said.

Clarke said the boat was a chartered fishing vessel that originated from the Richmond-Steveston area but he didn’t know its name.

Stephen Adam, operations manager with Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue, said the incident was “bizarre” and it was unknown why those aboard the vessel weren’t wearing life jackets.

“We don’t have any details of the type of vessel it was, why it went out, where it came from,” Adam said. “This now looks more like a recovery than a search just because the timeline (of) being out in the water for this kind of thing.”

Adam said the vessel appears to have “sank relatively fast and we don’t know what happened to it.”

He said a rescuer he spoke to was unsure why the charter boat was out there because it was “pretty choppy,” while Clarke said search conditions were favourable.

A strong wind warning was in effect on Monday for the Strait of Georgia south of Nanaimo.

Prime Minister Mark Carney said his thoughts and prayers were with people affected by the tragedy.

“Thank you to the first responders and everyone who have taken part in the search and rescue operation under extraordinarily difficult circumstances,” Carney said on social media.

Authorities have not released the name of the vessel, which RCMP and BC Emergency Health Services said had “capsized.”

“Thirteen units responded to the scene and four patients were received from the Coast Guard. Paramedics transported three patients to hospital in stable condition and one in critical condition,” BCEHS said in a statement.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 29, 2026.

— With files by Darryl Greer in Vancouver