Body of Missing O.C. Man Found in Harbor

The body of a 76-year-old Huntington Beach man was spotted in Huntington Harbour early Sunday, two weeks after authorities say the man fell overboard from his docked boat during stormy weather.

A motorist on the 16000 block of Pacific Coast Highway saw the body of James Ignacious Cormack about 8 a.m. about 100 yards from the dirt shoulder.

“There didn’t appear to be any signs of foul play, and it is believed the death was accidental,” said Seal Beach Police Sgt. Tim Olson.

An autopsy will be performed today to determine the cause of death.

Cormack was found about half a mile from where he was last seen Nov. 8.

His wife, Pat, 67, called police after her husband didn’t show up for work at their travel agency. She looked for him on their boat, which was docked at Sunset Aquatic Park.

“I knew something was terribly wrong,” she said. “I knew when the coffee wasn’t made and the reports weren’t done.”

Divers searched the aquatic park but stopped after two hours when stormy weather hit the shore.

A neighbor who was at the beach Sunday morning when the body was pulled from the water notified Pat Cormack that her husband may have been found. The couple’s son Michael identified his father.

Pat Cormack said her husband of 43 years knew how to swim but may have hit his head on the boat and drowned. The couple bought the boat 10 years ago and it became one of the passions of his life.

“He got his work done at the office and he’d go out in the boat,” Pat Cormack said. “He’d go out on the deck and read a book or watch football, then come home for dinner. He loved that boat. It was his love.”

Funeral arrangements are pending. Cormack leaves his wife, daughter Anne, and sons Michael, Steven, Thomas and Joseph.