The Coast Guard said that the agency and good Samaritans were searching for multiple people who were aboard the fishing vessel Wind Walker when they overturned in cold waters off Point Couverden.

Multiple people are missing after a fishing boat capsized near Point Couverden, southwest of Alaska’s capital of Juneau, the U.S. Coast Guard said Sunday.

The Coast Guard announced that the agency and good Samaritans were searching for multiple people who were aboard the fishing vessel Wind Walker that overturned in cold waters off Point Couverden. Based on reports from those familiar with the vessel, the Coast Guard said there were an estimated five people aboard.

“This number has not been confirmed and is subject to change pending new information,” the Coast Guard said in a statement.

The agency said watchstanders from its southeast Alaska sector received a mayday call at around 12:10 a.m., local time, on Sunday from the roughly 50-foot-long vessel. The vessel’s crew reported that they were overturning and watchstanders attempted to gather more information but received no response, according to the Coast Guard.

An emergency position-indicating radio beacon that was registered to the vessel was also activated and showed that the distress signal originated just south of Point Couverden in the Icy Strait, the Coast Guard said. 

Watchstanders then issued an urgent marine information broadcast, deploying an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter aircrew from Air Station Sitka along with a 45-foot Response Boat-Medium crew from Station Juneau to search the area, according to the Coast Guard.

28 rescued, 16 missing: Tour boat hit by large wave capsizes on Red Sea diving trip

The ferry vessel AMHS also overheard the broadcast and arrived at the scene first, the Coast Guard said. Search crews later discovered seven cold-water immersion suits and two strobe lights in the water.

The Coast Guard said it was searching in rough conditions, according to ABC News and Alaska’s News Source. Weather conditions in the area consisted of heavy snow, winds up to 45 to 60 mph, and 6-foot seas, the Coast Guard said.

Petty Officer John Hightower told Alaska’s News Source that search crews were using Coast Guard Cutter Healy — the largest and most technologically advanced polar icebreaker in the U.S. — as their main search platform.

On Sunday afternoon, the Coast Guard said that it was “aware of reports on social media claiming individuals from this incident have been located.”

“At this time, the (Coast Guard) has not confirmed these claims and is continuing search efforts,” the agency added.

Point Couverden is located on the southeastern end of Couverden Island, a small island in Haines Borough, Alaska.

The US Coast Guard said Sunday it’s searching for five people after a fishing boat reportedly capsized in rough weather and seas near Alaska’s capital of Juneau.

The crew of the approximately 50-foot boat, the Wind Walker, sent a mayday call that the vessel was overturning around 12:10 a.m., but the Coast Guard’s attempts to get more information from the crew went unanswered, according to a Coast Guard press release.

The Wind Walker capsized on the waters off Point Couverden, southwest of Juneau.

The crew of a ferry named the AMHS Hubbard overheard the broadcast and went to the scene first, with the Coast Guard launching an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter and a response boat, according to the press release.

Seven cold-water immersion suits and two strobe lights were found in the water in the search area.

Responders faced heavy snow, winds up to 60 mph and 6-foot seas, with part of the region, which is located in the Gulf of Alaska, under a winter storm warning.

The Coast Guard said that people who know the crew of the Wind Walker, which originated just south of Point Couverden in Icy Strait, said there were five people aboard, but officials have not yet been able to confirm that number.

Alaska’s election results were made official on Saturday, after the state review board finished certifying the results. Here are five takeaways from the final results: 

There were no changes in the outcomes, but the margin defeating ranked choice repeal grew

The margin between the votes rejecting the repeal of the state’s open primary and ranked choice voting system and those in favor of it grew. There were 737 more votes against Ballot Measure 2 than for it, an increase of 73 votes compared with the margin when the unofficial count was completed on Nov. 20. 

Republican U.S. Rep.-elect Nick Begich’s 7,876-vote margin of victory over U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, after ranked choice tabulation was slightly smaller than the unofficial results.

In the state Senate, five Democrats and five Republicans won, leaving the partisan makeup of the chamber unchanged, at 11 Republicans and nine Democrats. 

In the Alaska House, 21 Republicans, 14 Democrats and five independents were elected. That’s one fewer Republican and one more Democrat than the outgoing Legislature. 

Voters passed Ballot Measure 1 by nearly 16 percentage points. The measure will increase the minimum wage in three steps over the next two and a half years, reaching $15 per hour in July 2027. It also mandates paid sick leave for all Alaska workers, and bars employers from requiring workers to attend meetings on political and religious issues. 

Trump won Alaska by a bigger margin than 2020, but the state is trending away from Republicans compared with other states

President-elect Donald Trump won Alaska by a 13.13-percentage point margin, more than 3 points better than in 2020. Trump’s margin was 11.58 points more than his national popular vote margin, which currently stands at 1.55 percentage points. 

It’s the 15th consecutive time that the Republican candidate won Alaska’s three Electoral College votes for president. 

But while Alaska remains a red state, it’s less Republican compared with the rest of the country than it has been in a long time. The Republican margin over the Democrats ranked 22nd among the states — that is, Trump defeated Kamala Harris by a bigger margin in 21 other states. 

That’s the lowest-ranking performance for a Republican in Alaska relative to other states since Richard Nixon in 1972. Since George W. Bush’s margin in Alaska was the fourth-highest among the states in 2000, Alaska has been drifting away from being one of the more Republican states: In 2004, Alaska had the eighth-biggest Republican margin; in 2008, with Gov. Sarah Palin on the ballot, it was sixth; in 2012, 16th; in 2016, 19th; and in 2020, 20th. 

Turnout was down compared with four years ago, especially in rural Alaska

There were 340,981 ballots cast in Alaska this year, which is more than 20,000 fewer than four years ago, when 361,400 Alaskans voted. 

Because there were more than 15,000 more people registered in the state, the turnout percentage drop was relatively steep, from 60.67% in 2020 to 55.8% this year. However, the number of registered voters is actually higher than the number of voting eligible people in the state, since voter registration is nearly universal, while legal requirements mean it can take years for voters who leave the state to be removed from the rolls if they don’t notify the Division of Elections. 

Turnout declined in the four northern and western state House districts more than the state as a whole, after a similar decline in 2022. For example, House District 40, which covers the North Slope and Northwest Arctic boroughs, has the same boundaries as four years ago, but saw the number of ballots cast drop 4,677 to 3,362, a 28% decline. Direct comparisons are harder for the other rural districts, since some precincts were moved to House District 36 in the Interior. But the drop in rural voting was consistently greater than the statewide decline.

The parties’ geographic strengths shifted

For decades, Republicans were strong in South Anchorage, while Democrats excelled in rural Alaska. This year, that balance of power shifted, with Harris winning three of the six Anchorage districts that are mostly south of Dowling Road on her way to winning more votes than Trump across the city. 

But Trump performed relatively strongly in rural northern and western areas, winning House District 40 by nearly 10 percentage points after losing it to President Joe Biden in 2020, and cutting the margins in the traditionally Democratic strongholds in the Bering Strait and Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta regions.

In Southeast Alaska, House District 1, which includes Ketchikan, voted more Republican than four years earlier, while Juneau’s Mendenhall Valley continued to move toward the Democrats.

The Kenai Peninsula and Matanuska-Susitna boroughs remain the mainstays of Republican statewide wins. 

In the Interior, the congressional and legislative Democrats outperformed Harris in Fairbanks. 

Both conservatives and progressives have things to cheer about

For Alaska Republicans, Trump’s win means the White House will be more likely to approve resource development projects than it was under Biden. 

Begich’s defeat of Peltola returns the state to the all-Republican congressional delegation it has had since 1981, with the exception of Peltola’s two-plus years in the U.S. House and Begich’s uncle Mark Begich’s six years as a U.S. senator, from 2009 to 2015. 

In the state Senate, more-conservative Republicans will be a part of an official caucus for the first time in two years. While the caucus breakdown isn’t finalized, it looks like the Senate minority is doubling in size, from three to six senators. Senate caucuses must have five members to be officially recognized under legislative rules. That means minority-caucus senators will again sit on committees.

For Alaska Democrats, Peltola’s win in 2022 was historic, and her defeat this year is a disappointment. 

However, the Legislature is positioned to have two mostly Democratic majority caucuses – albeit in bipartisan or multipartisan coalitions. The currently announced House majority has all of the 14 House Democrats and five independents, as well as two Republicans. The currently announced Senate majority has all nine Democratic senators and five of the 11 Republicans.

If most Democrats are in the majorities it both chambers, it would be for the first time in nearly 44 years, since June 1981. All four caucuses are still trying to woo members, so there is still time for changes ahead of the scheduled Jan. 21, 2025, start to the 34th Alaska Legislature. 

And both ballot measure outcomes were victories for progressives, who supported the labor-backed Ballot Measure 1 and tended to oppose the Ballot Measure 2 repeal of ranked choice voting.