A sailboat captain is recovering from severe hypothermia after spending several hours in the water off British Columbia鈥檚 coast.

A statement from Fisheries and Oceans Canada says the rescue operation began Monday when the Coast Guard received a report of an unoccupied sailboat on the shore of Cortes Island, north of the Sunshine Coast community of Lund.

The department says Coast Guard personnel confirmed the vessel appeared to have been recently occupied, but the captain was missing.

It says the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Victoria issued a distress signal and deployed several coast guard vessels and aircraft to search the area.

The statement says a yellow life-jacket was crucial as the crew on one of the vessels spotted someone in the water between Cortes and Hernando islands.

It says the man had been in the water for four to five hours, and the rescue crew provided first aid while transporting him to emergency health services in Lund.

Without the yellow life-jacket, the department says it is 鈥渦nlikely that responders would have been able to find the missing captain and save his life.鈥�