The Japan Coast Guard said Tuesday it has dispatched a patrol boat to check on a yacht found drifting off the Pacific coast, apparently with a dead man aboard.
The coast guard believes the yacht, which has apparently suffered some spar damage, belongs to a man who last month began a solo voyage back to the U.S.
The coast guard received a report Monday from a fishing boat that someone was found collapsed on the sailboat about 1,330 km east of Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture.
The patrol boat was expected to arrive at the site Wednesday morning.
The fishing vessel initially tried to tow the yacht to the coast but gave up due to bad weather.
Judging from the yacht's name, the coast guard suspects the person in the boat, who is presumed dead, may be Sakae Hatashita, 81, a Japanese-American who was attempting to sail solo to the U.S.
Last year, he sailed from San Diego to Japan on a roughly seven-month trip to bring the ashes of his wife, Shizuko, to her hometown in Nagano Prefecture.