Tsunami Harley Headed to H-D Museum

By Bud Wilkinson of RIDE-CT.com

The Harley-Davidson that floated 4,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean and made headlines worldwide won’t be going back to its owner in Japan. Harley announced today that the 2004 Softail Night Train that belonged to Ikuo Yokoyama will instead be preserved in its recovered state by the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee as a memorial to the more 15,000 who lost their lives in the March 2011 tsunami in Japan, as per Yokoyama’s wishes.

Yokoyama kept the bike in an insulated cargo container, which Canadian Peter Mark discovered on a remote beach on British Columbia’s Graham Island more than a year after the tsunami. Inside was the Harley, complete with its Japanese license plate. With the help of news organizations and others, the 29-year-old Yokoyama was tracked down. Yokoyama lost his home in the tsunami and, despite an offer from Harley to return the bike, he requested that it go to the museum.

“It is truly amazing that my Harley-Davidson motorcycle was recovered in Canada after drifting for more than a year,” said Yokoyama in a press release put out by Harley in which he also expressed “heartfelt appreciation” to Mark.