Haitian-American man was carrying aid to Haiti from Miami. Then his vessel capsized

He was heading to Haiti from Miami to start a water taxi business. But the boat he had recently purchased for his new project capsized only hours into the trip.

Renel Noel, 69, who devoted much of his life to helping his homeland by raising money for humanitarian needs, purchasing an ambulance and installing a water system to provide drinking water for his fellow Haitians, died during a new effort to improve the traveling conditions in the northwest region of his country.

“He’s been working tirelessly to make it — especially where he’s from — a better place,” said Jean Dorcelien, a friend of Noel’s.

Noel’s sudden death on June 7 is difficult to comprehend, his family said. His family and friends remember him as someone who devoted his life to being of service to others.

Noel wanted to transport people by water from Cap-Haïtien in northern Haiti to his hometown of La Pointe, on the outskirts of Port-de-Paix in the northwest. Deciding it was a solution to one of many problems plaguing his homeland — the lack of safe road access to parts of the country — Noel bought a 42-foot 1972 Hatteras boat in April in Fort Lauderdale.

What happened

Noel took to the sea two months later with his friend Anouce Jean. They set sail on June 7, shortly after midnight, from the Miami River.

At around 1:30 a.m., Jean said he noticed smoke coming from the boat’s engine. By the time Noel investigated, the boat had already taken on too much water and was rapidly sinking, Jean said.

The engine failure cut electrical power to the vessel, and their phones and radio became inoperable. Jean said they tried to get into a lifeboat, but it was tied down too hard and the knives were stuck in the cabin below.

He and Noel did manage to put on their life jackets. They jumped off the sinking boat and held on to the boat’s railing while also holding onto one barrel of gasoline together so that the currents wouldn’t separate them.

“I told him, ‘The water is so strong, I will lose you and you will lose me,’” Jean said.

Jean said he believes the four barrels of fuel with which Noel was traveling could have overloaded the boat and caused it to sink.

On the day of the capsizing, Jean and Noel were following the El Shaddai, a cargo ship that was carrying food, pipes and water pumps to the House of Hope, a children’s hospital and a long-term foster care facility in La Pointe.

Azoual Lubin, the ship’s helmsman, said he had tried to convince Noel not to follow in his newly purchased boat because it was a three-day trip that would have taken too long. Lubin said Noel was adamant. The ship’s crew could see Noel’s boat while crossing the Brickell Avenue Bridge at 1:30 a.m. But when it disappeared in the dark, Lubin said he thought Noel had decided to return home.

“I wasn’t worried at all because it was good weather,” Lubin said. “And if anything was wrong, I believed he would have called us.”

After the boat capsized, Noel and Jean eventually had to let go and start swimming. Jean said that it was completely dark.

“The Coast Guard passed by us three times, but they couldn’t see us,” Jean said. “We put our hands up, and the waves pushed us away.”

Noel died soon after while leaning on Jean in the middle of the ocean. “So, I let him go,” Jean said.

A family on a yacht later rescued Jean and alerted the Coast Guard, which had already initiated a search after noticing the debris in the water. Jean was transported to Broward Health Imperial Point in Fort Lauderdale.

The Coast Guard said it recovered Noel’s body in the afternoon of June 8 approximately 20 miles northeast of Port Saint Lucie. His lifeless body matched the missing person description, which a DNA test and his fingerprints later confirmed. Noel’s family said they learned of the capsizing from family in Haiti who had been informed by Jean.

Involvement in the U.S. Coast Guard

Noel’s family immediately contacted the Coast Guard when they heard his body had been retrieved. They feared the Coast Guard would mistake him for one of the many Haitians who have perished at sea before reaching their U.S. destination.

“Without his ID, they probably just thought this was a man trying to escape Haiti,” said his daughter Suzanne Noel. “Thankfully, we contacted them soon enough to say, ‘This is our father. He’s an American. This is his name and what he does.’”

Noel was involved with the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary for more than 20 years.

Mary Newman, the vice commander of Flotilla 6-9 for the Coast Guard’s Seventh District, introduced Noel to the Auxiliary, and they worked together ever since. Flotilla 6-9 is an organizational unit of the Auxiliary that assists the Coast Guard in any mission.

Newman said she felt “shock, disbelief, and absolute sadness” when she heard of Noel’s death at sea.

“He had passed all the communications training, which means he could get on the radio on the boat,” Newman said. “The Coast Guard would know where his boat went down. He would have been able to determine that.

“Renel was one of my best friends,” Newman continued. “And he was such a huge asset here in our community.”

Noel was the nation’s first Haitian Creole interpreter for the Coast Guard, Newman said.

“It was a shock to everyone in the Flotilla,” said Dorcelien, the friend and commander of Flotilla 6-9. “I still can’t believe it.”

Humanitarian aid

Noel’s former wife, Paulette, said he was motivated to do humanitarian work after witnessing the help missionaries provided to his village when he was growing up in Haiti.

He got his start by going on mission trips to countries in the Caribbean and South America in the early 1990s as a member of the Miami Shores Presbyterian Church.

Later, he partnered with the church to send the first medical ambulance to the Beraca Medical Center in La Pointe. In 2004, he used his skills as a licensed irrigation contractor to install a domestic water system, providing fresh drinking water for the medical center.

03 May 2003, Sat The Miami Herald (Miami, Florida) Newspapers.com

In 2012, Noel founded Friends of Humanity. His organization was a bridge between Extreme Response, a faith-based humanitarian organization, and House of Hope, the child care facility in Haiti. Noel purchased food and supplies —rice, beans, cornmeal, bulgur wheat, sugar, flour, smoked herring, salted codfish — and packed them into barrels and boxes and loaded them onto cargo ships for House of Hope and Beraca Medical Center every three months.

“He just touched so many lives by the way that he helped and in so many various avenues, in and around the village— not just us, he would help the church and the schools,” said Jenny Reitz, the director of development for Extreme Response.

Besides the water taxi project, Noel had planned to build a hydroponic garden at the House of Hope with the help of a fellow member of the Rotary Club of Little Haiti. The goal was to expand outside the hospital and teach others how to grow their own vegetables.

“We called him the Papa of the House of Hope, just for the many things he did for us,” Reitz said. “It was just heartbreaking. Who can I ever get to replace him?”

Reitz met with Noel’s family and the Friends of Humanity board members at his funeral on June 25. The El Shaddai’s owner offered to continue transporting the supplies needed for the children’s hospital.

“Through his death, there’s just been a number of people who have come and said, ‘We want to keep the partnership and working in Haiti going,’” said Reitz. “So, we will continue doing everything we can to keep his legacy alive.”