Cruising Documentary - Queen's Birthday Storm

[Music] in 1994 a rogue storm hits the largest sea rescue ever attempted in the south [Music] voluntary marine radio operators will work with the rescue center to help 10 yachts in trouble 21 people will be plucked from raging seas by two naval ships two freighters and a fishing boat the road cyclonic weather pattern that's causing this terror destruction and for some tragedy is officially called a bomb in a raged for three grueling days and will affect over 40 vessels in all it will claim the lives of a family of three this is the story of that ordeal of the endurance of those who survived and the heroism of those on land in the air and of sea who took part in Pacific rescue yachting is a favorite pastime for thousands millions around the world weekends on the harbour attract all sorts of sailors and all kinds of craft who soon learned how punishing the wrong turn or instruction can be how dangerous this so-called leisure pursuit can get but when you've met that challenge when you've felt at one wind and sea that's when interest can go into passion that's when you might just be tempted to take time out for the ultimate sailing experience and offshore blue water South Pacific cruise we had to go sailing before we bought the boat but at that stage was crippled with RSI I couldn't hold on I couldn't move either on and I was really scared of sailing and she's a clairvoyant and and we were I forget where we were exactly in the States all of a sudden she woke me up one where he says guess what we're getting on a yacht and heading to New Zealand I started away back having a trailor sailor in the early 70s then got involved with international boating finished up doing the Admirals captain 1989 with Michael Fay we did the one turn Awards Sydney Hobart and an 86 sort Silver Shadow he wanted the boat so I said well why don't we build a boat big enough to live on and then we can go places and as we sort of I guess it was just we played with the idea and then decided we wanted to build one strong enough to actually Ocean Cross with it we left on a three-year cruise and that was four and a half years ago and we figured it was gonna be another four or four and a half years before we got back so you can see where once you get started it's it's hard to stop at kitty-kitty marine radio in the north of New Zealand John and Maureen Cullen have for 10 years kept their cruising subscribers aware of weather conditions and supported those in trouble you've got to talk them through a problem and convince them that they can do it and people will survive everybody will survive if they have a will to live and get confidence but when aircraft and ships have to be mobilized for search and rescue the National Rescue Coordination Center on 24-hour standby at aviation house near Wellington is very quickly activated I never want to know the names of the people on board D yachts I know this for people the year I know that that one's an injured but John's got to deal with the personalities and in the names of the people I just want to know that there are four people there and then when we rescue for people that's four people it's from late April on when the Cyclones are gone the prevailing winds and currents call blue water yachties to the Pacific Titano Fiji Vanuatu New Caledonia it's become so popular the island cruising Association has formed the New Zealand to Tonga regatta as mutual support from the ever-growing fleets it's not a race it's a pleasure cruise and a fleet of 34 is scheduled to leave late May a week before New Zealand's Queen's birthday holiday weekend before departure all boats and crews are cleared by customs and asked to fill in a 10-minute form detailing personnel safety equipment destination and schedule and these forms are passed on to the rescue center New Zealand registered boats must also pass a category one safety inspection requiring among other things appropriate and reliable life rafts emergency beacons and UHF and VHF radios foreign registered boats are not in 1994 required to meet these standards there were the conditions offshore cause cancellation of the official starts and began a skippers are left to determine their own departure times not all the earth sailing in the region a part of the regatta not all the regatta boats have chosen to depart from Auckland and there are several boats which for a range of unforeseen reasons delay the final departure it's these yachts sailing well behind the main regatta fleet which they find themselves most exposed to the storm quartermaster lift on schedule from Philip Arad the lost shaft and propeller and forced it back to port it departs with skipper Bob Rimmer his wife Marie and her son James some five days later Graham thorough catamaran from Australia crewed by Bill and Robin Forbes left on time but temporary steering problem set them back so they to lag behind the main fleet we had reasonable sailing you had swells you know 1 to 2 metres winds were even down to 15 knots at times and you know I had gone round at the southeast and the East and I'm saying hey we're in the southeast raids were there American couple Dana and Paula Dennis who are not gonna very getter by heading for Fiji so take their 45-footer destiny on a more northerly course then one of the things we don't have to do as cruisers just leave in a 49 blow so we set it out and come Monday though the winds abated it looked good other than very sloppy seas we really had a very good trip 32 foot severe is not part of the regatta either well though they plan to rendezvous with regatta friends and Tonga Keith Levy and Ursula Schmidt have waited for a more inviting weather window they eventually sit sail three days after the main fleet when we sailed off from from Auckland one the 31st of May I didn't have a cent everything was on Sophia before leaving Keith's given his spare distress flares to sistership Island also beyond fatahna for over 20 years pilots been home to Americans Greg Forbes and Barbara Parks being US registered so not obliged to comply with New Zealand's category 1 safety standards they've left from Auckland's West Haven marina with no working radio and no locator beacon we've always been a little budget cruisers and once again we put we put our money and our effort into into the boat and it's basically taking care of ourself hot light another catamaran leaves on time but gets into heavy seas and is forced to continue north Darrell and Divi Anna wheeler sail to New Zealand from Florida and for the last four years they've enjoyed the South Pacific cruising grounds my wife started moving into I call these altered states of consciousness and now I'm used to seeing her do that when she's in meditation but she was doing it like when in her normal States and the shell of a sudden said to me well we're heading towards the vortex and it's going to disturb the weather patterns so you better be prepared yeah that was the words and I felt like this chill go up my backside the sneak racing Cruiser silver shadow is the only yacht to be from Wellington a day after the main fleet but skipper Peter O'Neill and his crew of three including his son are confident their extra speed will soon see them bridge the gap we had a great ride all the way up the coast oh we got what we got winds up to 30 40 knots no problem but the boat was off the wind so the boat was sailing very comfortably and we're making great progress in fact we were doing something like 200 miles a day further south skipper John Hill Horst his wife Cathy Gilmore and three other crew leave Christchurch on Waikiki we - the same day as the main fleet but five days later than they planned and hit a southerly storm we got hit by disgust and good southerly fashion we then had about two days where we had winds in excess of 50 knots hovering around in an excess of 50 knots from Fiji the freighter - II took our three skippered by Jim hidden leaves on schedule for its regular trip south to Auckland I said aw the weather looks good we should be there on time which which wasn't really the correct thing to do and we sell from the token it was beautiful conditions it was all right clear weather forecast everything looked good the sailing schedule of HD means it is mana why the Navy's hydrographic survey ship has been somewhat altered by a mercy mission back to rural Island they returned to assist a department of conservation officer with a severely gassed league over Queens birthday weekend we were actually making our way north from Rhode Island towards Tonga at the start of a deployment to the South Pacific as part of our annual deployment for routine survey work around the Pacific one week into the regatta these are the vessels randomly selected by circumstance to feel the full force of the bomb the rogue weather patterns starting to form in the northwest corner John Cullen had planned to be out in the boat himself over the long weekend he decides to stay with Maureen instead just in case given the looming weather conditions and signs of possible trouble Friday evening was the first time we really knew that it was heading our way and it was supposed to be gained across the path of the regatta fleet and we were told then that ok it was going to be round about Saturday that it would be close to us and we would have fairly strong winds just got bigger and bigger the winds got stronger and stronger but everything was fine you know so you know I'd been in 50 knots before and big seas and you know I wasn't really expecting any major change I think you should slow down the conditions for you if you continue on your present path you're heading straight into it if you want to take some evasive action you might like to make a little bit we'd caught up with the last boats in the fleet but that's when we saw the low we decided to go to go west all day Thursday and Thursday night silver shadow and quartermaster were off of our port and starboard rear quarter of our boat we saw their lights all evening we'd heard him talking on the radio so we slowed down Friday morning and they passed us the severe depression soon to the into a bomb continues southeast traveling at over 400 miles per day and it's starting to make itself known to destiny we were getting pooped occasionally you know but that's something that's happened to us before so it wasn't until we actually got up into the into the high 60s that low seventies that I realized that we were in what what I thought was a hurricane a cyclone and all the indications were there that he was a cyclone which was out a season and normally the odd ones if you look back the odd warms out of season normally is about fellas the extra energetics of the wind we were getting the development of a lot of thunderstorm activity it was over sea temperatures that were about 22 degrees not a tropical condition this was not a tropical cyclone in that sense of the word to get out of calling it a cyclone and having it out of season it was called a severe depression so you can put what name you want to it it was a circular motion depression and it was a severe one which is a cyclone Danny but you know everybody to their own I mean in its development was not a tropical cyclone which requires waters of say 28 degrees and light and variable winds aloft here again we had moderate sea surface temperatures and the strong jet coming around these things energize that storm so that by midnight it was a very intense storm the weather forecasting was still giving us a higher barometer reading than I was getting and there was no warning out so we weren't on Julie concerned at that stage it was very black anyway out there just very black but it was the Lightning was approaching I believe we went right through the center because of this lightning show it was just amazing and as you as it approached us you could just see it coming directly and then it was on us and it was just all over us and you can feel it as it cracked and just go through your body we had 85 knots of wind and it really wasn't a wind it was it was a mist it was really an intriguing one of the things that we talked about later we didn't discuss it at the time but there was a real presence there there was an evil and there that that we felt the wind would would come in from the right of the left and swirl up in front of us in a big mist and then it would exit and it might exit forward it might exit over my shoulder there wasn't any it wasn't a consistent type of wind and with the lightning crackling all around us it was we can only describe it as a real evil we went right through the middle and we got typical vortex conditions the sky cleared we got a confused swell with a predominant southeasterly a big fella running through and the birds were in the middle you know they got pulled in into the eye of it and then she went through and the barometer took off on a rise and the wind took off at the same time from the southeast now the top edge of the storm has found the tail Enders of the Righetti yachts who left opened on time notes like a roaster and Corinne yeah you're just sitting there I was actually just sitting there thinking how well the both handled about 30 seconds later there was this gigantic roar and you just know the boats going over this is it just goes the whole mass goes right out we went down to about 120 degrees you think that this is it but you don't have time really for anything else I mean I had no sensation of being in the water I had a safety harness on but I must have been over the side we lost winch handles we lost lost seats quads and but the next thing is the boats back up and we I was jerked back into the cockpit it was like really just huge mountains with snow everywhere look like you could ski everywhere it was just a foam and it was why it's so much white every day just putting your head up and just looking at all that water and I just I was getting the stage I was ready to scream I've just hit enough I had enough and that continued paying a slump claim yes I actually said goodbye to her you know I was I was concerned that that maybe there wouldn't be time and she didn't accept that - well she was yeah he said it twice it was a bit of time in between but the first time he said it he basically just what he said was I love you and I knew he was saying goodbye and I just I just I was mad don't you say that you know we got a job to do and we're doing it now keep staring the wind is just howling and it just doesn't stop and you just shout hear it just stop it doesn't just keeps on going you think you can fool Cass that says there's another day and a half of us think how can i how can I get through another night I could see they were over the top of our mast height which is 65 feet off of the water and I just said you know realizing just well what I was looking at there and I said I'm gonna gotta go put in a pan pan I have to let somebody know where we are and the situations that we're in right here Carrie Carrie go ahead with your pain upon prank call signals urges it's one step below I made a distress call and then the catch the caller has a very urgent message concerning their safety [Music] Roger I can't be destiny is all well with you over [Music] Roger okay we will stay on standby just give us a call if you've got any problems Iver Destiny's a big yacht and minutes after a pan-pan call she'll be an even bigger trouble wave the tuchus was pretty much the same starter just we've sucked up in it they're hit us the season Gulf dust but there was a difference in that we hung up in the sea I said to myself to you this is different something's different here and when the bow finally came out there was just air under us and I said to her I said we're on our way we both just watch as the bow just went like this I remember becoming weightless where the I was just like floating off the deck when something drops out from under you hanging on to the wheel he was standing behind the wheel when we came out of that wave it was just a freefall to the bottom and so it pitch I remember hitting because I remember going type of thing but but as far as and what the boat did I don't know we didn't run out of air either one of us man I felt like I was sort of in a washing machine because we pitch pulled and then we rolled and I think was in the role that I was feeling you know the agitation of the water pulling me back up we know we rolled because the mast itself was actually bending right around the boat and came up on the other side it went off to starboard and went under the boat and came up on the port side so there had to be a very quick flip and then a very strong role to bend a mast like that it had to be a very fast roll and so you tend to look at the other person and in that instant there's there's a lot of things said in that instant are you okay you know are we ours is the boat still afloat and we you know and once once we both recognized we were all right then I tried to move and I couldn't and and I couldn't drag myself and I couldn't sit up and I mean I was I was in excruciating pain so I told her I said I'm broke I came up with the hacksaw hacksaw eeper and the 406 EPIRBs you know if there's any one piece of gear on board that didn't fail that's it once switched on an e / an electronic position indicating radio beacon sends its signal to a satellite which relays it to a land station in this case a commercial aircraft picks it up first and so the rescue center is activated for a six beacon gives us a lot of information apart from doing us a very accurate in position it also tells us the identity of the vessel so we knew it was from destiny we knew the pan call from was from destiny the New Zealand Air Force was called in and a Narayan aircraft is dispatched to pinpoint Destiny's location and ascertain the condition of yatin crew they took us a couple hours to get into the search area and understand until there was conditions were far worse and then hitting the forecast at the time we'd have a bit of a chat to keep it ready on the way out now on 24-hour alert Kerry Kerry has cleared the air for regular scheduled radio reports and urgent calls only while John's working with the Orion he gets a call from quartermaster seeking advice on how to best handle this - he'll your choices - hive - where you are just sort out with if it's the most comfortable for you you really don't have a choice and sort out whichever way you can to set the best to be able to sustain the stronger conditions because you're going to be looking at well I don't know if you don't get what the other boats got but I guess you've got to be prepared they've had 70 not so when just prepare yourself for the worst [Music] unfortunately not very much that this does your cover won't be much but anything at all you too will help over what sort of descended out of the cloud and heavy rain and came in at about a thousand feet and the waves of was such and there was enough there was enough spin around to really confuse the visual picture it didn't look like we're at a thousand feet destinies masters down and Dana's legs been broken up to him Paul I have to get him below deck either I'd die up here or I get below now what's it gonna be sort of that condition at that point I mean so we we he just basically gritted his teeth hard moved his water and I grabbed his legs it took us about three passes to actually fine find the distant healing but it was pretty rugged we had a lots of wind a little knocked around quite severely since we started off we we weak to the meat office and asked them to give us an update on that on the weather but at that stage we didn't realize just how bad it was and in fact it wasn't until the Orion got under the area and came back and said it's a state 9c and the cemani knocks on the surface we started to think Joey gosh we've got a really big storm here so about this time I was standing there and I hear destiny destiny looked around thought where's that coming from somebody's calling us destiny we followed the sound and it was a VHF and it was the Orion's oh my god you know because such a short period of time it kind by hours after we'd roll I was going into shock I gave him Tylenol three I gave him one and a half of those for the pain he seems to be but I get is there anything [Applause] dear maybe the value of of that calm voice to come aboard your link to the outside all of a sudden here you're not alone out there in the middle of nowhere getting getting hell kicked out of here you say well we have a message from your mother and you know she the message was to hang in there it'll be okay and it was like oh god my thing he was my poor mom Paula's next problem with Dana incapacitated and now in shock is the broken mast it's threatening to pound a hole and guests in his house we're pretty conscious of the fact that the master was bashing into the side of the boat had a fiberglass boat that it wasn't a long to immerse came through it had started turning into almost a dull sound from that bang it was kind of almost like a squishy sound sound and then and then just before daylight it the Timbers you could hear timber cracking in those spots I was hitting and that was so hard to sit and listen to all night it was just you just felt it's just a matter of time not far away the freighter to ease the cow except the radio contact between the Orion and destiny and offers to help the Ryan called me back and they said yeah we're going for the rescue and they said can you make best speed and the problem with that of course I'm I'm in a pickle as well I mean it's bad [Applause] [Music] [Applause] I'm just managing to all the course without protein to the barometers at 9/8 3 now it's still falling the chief officer had finished his he's four to eight watch on the bridge and he just got into the mess room and he got thrown across the mess room with another guy wait about 18 stolen the ship's fitter and the two of them took a skate across the mess room and the chief officer broke his link now the catamaran hoplite has joined quartermaster in seeking advice from Carrie Carrie 16 thousand miles of ocean cross and I've never steered the boat since always it's always you know always when you come into port when you cross the oceans you put on autopilot cuz the steers better and you can never steer I mean he can reverse Park like nobody's business but he has never actually taken it off of autopilot ever at sea so that would became my biggest concern what happens if I have to start steering this boat down these waves what he actually said is is if I have to steer the boat we can all just kiss her ass good-bye [Music] what you've got unfortunately look as if it's going to continue you're right in the path of the system and as little you can do about it so we're good luck with it the above will be thinking of you we will be on here all night if there's any problems [Music] we weren't going to be able to rescue the people off the destiny until first like the next day that states we realized that we were going to need another aircraft if we were going to have an aircraft up data to help the toy cacao first of all find the yacht and then keep an eye on the whole thing so Steve went back at that stage back to Oakland and we said we will we'll probably need another airplane and all consider we have one available but we only have one more then our raging storm this bomb at sea also causes real problems for the Orion especially when it flies low we could actually feel the waves go underneath this because of the size of the waves in the men and when there was going to be a few of our guys I cooked in the back as well which hasn't helped things made sure wherever I was that I had hand till I was just on the hand holds all the time because you never knew when you were going over yeah no one at all it would just be a giant heat Cup blam and then all heck would break loose [Music] I wish I could get I don't know I'm also out to do what I can do and then I'll come back if you call and this is you call us anything you want my name is Bruce or bike is my cool now in the back we just call this Kiwi or whatever your life I can remember at one point feeling quite anxious for and it was from then on and I realized how serious their plight was and everyone out there hearing their voice hearing the tone of voice was very important [Music] i Coolermaster Kerikeri I copy what's your problems over [Music] quartermasters distress call for immediate helpers hampered by not knowing their current position in the northwest the two ether cow has had to heave to and wait until daylight to attempt its rescue of destiny the second Orion's only just been dispatched from Auckland the first arrives running low on fuel and is due to fly under Fiji as soon as it's been relieved meanwhile they must keep faith with destiny and stay in touch with Paula she kept asking us how long it was to to first light and we kept telling her I think we kept sort of telling it was only half an hour for for several hours I suppose there's about three o'clock when they felt that the mass was going to actually start breaking the boat up she suddenly picked up again and there was a lot of anxiety there she actually called us up rather us initiating the communications and got worried it was stressful Gary Gary John and Maureen maintain an around-the-clock vigil taking hourly reports from each yacht emergency calls are started to mount the next is some hot that way pretty hard you've got about 80 knots of wind at the present moment ever okay we'll look for your call every hour okay good luck there over you imagine this is a catamaran moving down all of a sudden starts to stand up on it on one hole and moves up about 60 degrees and is moving up and starts to careen down the wave on one hull and she flies out of the chair I fly out on top of her I mean she smashes into the wall I smash in on top of her and as the thing is going up it's almost like this hand this like this invisible hand comes down all of a sudden and just pushes her back down and everything in the boat trashes everyone's Mettling extremely rough seas but it's the roadway the totally unexpected 50 to 60 foot wall of water that's the most punishing Greg and Barbara and pilot have already met more than one we heard another one coming and this one just rolled us right on over and there wasn't really in that much anything violent that violent about it except the fact that you could hear this thing coming again another one of these big rumbling breakers I was lying down on my bunk I went right over I'd never moved all that stuff wound up on top of me but mostly Greg but it was a very smooth and quick roll then we were up right again I was scrambling around trying to get ready to go up on deck and see what kind of a mess was up there our dig it was also our life raft it was it had full floatation so that it was unsinkable but it was in two pieces and stacked up on duct and we we lashed the two pieces together and then we lashed it on death row still they were fine but our mast was in S shape I had to get rid of the thing because that at that point our boat was was or was our life raft was there our lifeboat and had to keep it try to keep it floating at all cost because I couldn't imagine even getting into a life raft or any to any type of a lifeboat in those conditions I don't think he that anybody could have survived in a life raft [Music] what a master Kerry Kerry Roger you loud and clear go ahead there's not much you can do how's everybody onboard as anybody heard it's all over now 1/2 loose hundred pound dinghy banging against the side of hot lights is adding to DV honor and Daryl's problems I've got to get out there and cut cut that dinghy loose but of course I can't leave the wheel so who does that leave with my son and I'm sitting there thinking my god if he goes out there and another wave comes and takes him off we realized if we were an outside steering there wouldn't be anybody on that boat that's what my son had to go out into and he says I've been really thinking about this he says I'm expendable and of course that really gets you right in the heart and he said I don't want to go I don't want to go if I can't see your eyes that's what it was I don't want to go if I can't see your eyes and I hurt her respond back don't worry if you go in I'll jump in with you I said I will follow you and so I'm sitting there now on the helm and saying now we're not talking about my son cuz I know when she says something like that that's serious we're talking about my wife and then two most precious things in my life could be in that water you know that's what I'm talking about abject terror and all of a sudden this huge way hits the boat and the boat was Wayne that's when he started screaming at me is he still there is he still there we hear this what many boats are experiencing now is known as severe knockdowns with the forth of the wind and a wave knocks you over until your master's underwater but you kill which is loaded with tons of lead conspires of the force of gravity to snap your boat up right again unless like Sophia you go the full 360 degrees all of a sudden we got hit by a wave and turned upside down and I was just realizing I open my eyes and I was covered with some of the things I was lying there on the ceiling seeing our new carpet which we put in before we left and well yeah but was it doing up there I saw that the companionway was in in the strange animal and I realized that we've been upside down I asked if he was alright and I just heard a few whispers he really hurt his back badly Carrie Carrie Raya was still on the skate so I tried to get a mayday call true but I couldn't do that because as we discovered later on the mast was gone [Applause] [Music] so was she headed all under control and I was sort of at this stage oh he was he was he was really rehearsed like mad he was asked but what's happening wrong me what are we doing where's the water coming from always here always ask those questions and I told him that we've been on the way to Tonga that we have been paroled and that we've been through a fix that we are in a big storm and I told him that he should turn the eeper one because I was too nervous to read the instructions at four minutes past 2:00 on Sunday morning the 5th of June Maureen takes what has to be the last transmission from Bob Rima on quartermaster we don't mind we're just sitting here waiting for the calls and thinking about you're out there you're welcome you keep your chin up it's going to improve the racing cruiser Silver Shadow has made what they'd thought was excellent progress having left a day late and from Wellington they've now caught up with the tale Enders but in their eagerness to join the regatta they've sailed right into the storm we had an enormous roar we were going along at about eight half knots and we heard a big roar and I was in my bank near the near the nave and next minute it was like a truck hitting the side of the boat just hit us picked us up and then threw us down and we went to about 160 degree and at that stage we actually lost our mast now this stage the storm was actually getting worse and we were getting knocked and I've been worried about people be on deck so we all got back down below after good got rid of the mast and I was about to we said well I said to the guys I said okay what else can we do and it's assess the situation right tomorrow morning will a jury rigged up we had a spinnaker pole and we'll we you know I got enough fuel we'll we'll sail off to to Tonga and then we'll carry on from there and in effect repairs but just as about as I was about to make a cup of coffee for the guys we got hit and I heard it coming we got hit by an enormous wave that just went right over top of us and turned us 360 I can assure you you don't want to be in the 360 club [Music] so he got me on to a bank and I said John I think I've broken so I knew s break I'd broken something because I could feel the bones actually grating against each other and we actually sat there for a few moments and then Murray said hey we're lost our life raft now our life raft was tied to the dick through stainless steel bolts and a couple of those had broken in that 360 so we'd love lost the life raft I didn't said to the guys hey I think it's time we put the epub off I didn't actually know the extent of my injuries the boys had started pumping panadeine into me I could have taken morphine but I didn't want to do that because that makes you sleep in as skipper I wanted to be aware of what I was about and John and the guys that then got me behind Ally cloth in the bank on the port side and actually put cushions over me and tied me into that bunk and that's where I stayed for probably the next 36 hours until we were rescued I could claustrophobia at times I tell you what that was pretty terrifying the rescue centers had an unidentified EPIRBs signal for four hours now they suspect it so fear but can't confirm it to a duty officer bills-sama finds another aircraft to join contact of the captain of the Orion that was holding over the top a decent in said we've got the speakin it's about two hundred odd miles to the South can you go down and have a lot and the captain made the decision said no I'm too happy about leaving the people overnight they're in distress condition they're not in good shape I want to stay and we accepted that straight off the rescue coordinators have no choice they must wait till morning for a c-130 Hercules to fly into the rescue area and locate the mystery beacon meanwhile bill links up with John and Kerry Kerry to further investigate its source going through their position reports have been getting in they worked out the highest probability before that beacon was Sophia no contact was Sophia at that stage that lost a chief comms with it so that was the most likely tag not long after that they got another beacon 4 a.m. Sunday the mono eyes checking out a pan-pan call from the US registered Mary T relayed by quartermaster some hours before when suddenly and against all reason the night sky is ablaze what we saw what we thought we saw was a flare we're all of us standing on the bridge the captain had retired by that stage and the off-going officer watch you're gone and we're just looking forward and in the sky just lit up it was very bright there's suddenly all the decks lit up I could just see yeah the column eyes there was all this light around us we might be getting some lightning because we were going into a storm and then the sky just lit up and we could see for miles and it was really quite strange and about a hundred feet above us in low cloud there was this great big ball of light it wasn't wasn't a defined light like that it was just a glowing mass of white light was just a tinge of sort of orange caught to the bridge although the description that I was given didn't sound very much like a normal safety flare and for it to be white that's not the normal distress type color so we well I I mulled it over and discussed it with the office of the watch and decided that we couldn't just ignore it so I put a call out on VHF remphan response to that call bill was really and he said I wouldn't mind being taken off here and I actually said to the captain okay my husband's just said he wouldn't mind being taken off but that's when he said to me we'll look we are on our way to a vessel in distress and I just said well message understood we are coping but we'd at least like you to take note of our position and that's when he actually said that he would at least give our position to the to the wellington rescue center shortly after that ramp the caught up again and said that they'd lost their steering their main saw the small bit of sail they had set up had blown out that they'd almost capsized and they requested to be taken off we came very close that's probably the closest we've ever come to capsizing and that's that and because so much water around it was all this stuff came out everything came out for the first time I told them that any any assistance I was able to give would be hazardous to life and limb the mana ye shelters rent until daybreak meanwhile to the south hoplite checks in with marina this boat was careening down the waves you've seen you've seen these pictures of stunt cars where they go up on two wheels and go down well we're craning down the waves just like this and it was like in slow motion I was on the floor now my son was standing straight up on the windows Divi Anna was thrown out onto the floor and we're down and here D viata in the background yellow she's found her spot and then all of a sudden the boat came down and right-side up she went over but she didn't go over upside down she went over and came back and landed upright and that was her death row all the engines were stuffed because they were filled up with water all of the drogue lines had wrapped all of her propellers and wrapped her rudders the Porsche had cracked her cracked up portion of the hull and there we sat and I lashed the wheel over and now we were sitting sideways and these huge seas so I brought the children to man I haven't children they're in their 30s and later but they're still my children and I brought them and I told him wanted him close and had Daryl and we got into a tight knit circle at the base of the door and I told them that because we were sideways into the Seas that we not having any control if the was to go over or if the windows were to break and she filled with water what I wanted them to do was be to be very centered and I wanted them to understand that when they were born into this world that when they were in the womb they living in salt water and the joy they had when they were in their mother and that the DNA structure of the body has its own living understanding and when you release your consciousness from it it actually goes into a joy frequency it's free and it goes back into mother and so that when we left we'd open the door and we would swim together and that it would just be like a little bit of cold water shocked the lungs just a little bit but that it wouldn't be painful and that we would just move and that we'd move through this vortex energy and it would be all right when hot light fails to make its next ginger and ready Erica one gets well he drops in through the rescue center [Music] [Music] Caribbean calling and calling I think marble rod up till now [Music] yes tourney heart lights of fear silver shadow rampler and quartermaster have all activated their beacons and now 6:30 a.m. Sunday 5 June - if the cow is ready to meet with destiny yeah daybreak 6:30 I said soon as I get a Twilight I'll make a run for it and by then I'd move the ship into into a southeast position I was southeast of the yacht and they were setting to the north still and I came through wanting it on my starboard side in her port and the the first time I misjudged it it just seemed this huge ship was coming at me and I just I just oh God you know I just how is this ever gonna go down how at that point oh my god oh my god Dana get up here and I came through very close and then the last minute I said oh I've got to get out of this will abort it and I went full ahead on both engines and as I'm coming past the yacht I had to kick that engine astern and give maximum um on the other engine to spin around so I was going full ahead on the port full of stern on the starboard and about system cutting away from the OP before I blew on top of it and I don't think it gives them much confidence on the first it didn't go well the boat didn't our boat didn't react well and the two II got caught and a big swell and it was real and heal really healing bad and so as we went by her we were getting sucked up under Stern into the prop wash and I was just looking straight up at this huge ship as I was getting sucked right into her props you could see the ship starting to just turn off Stern away from us and it was just amazing watching it and so then he made another pass and in between the passes I came down and I just said all right I just don't know how this is gonna happen you know she had some serious doubts if he could do it at that point she came down and says I don't think he can get us off don't think this is gonna happen well we changed the plan then which I'd talked to rattle on deck and we decided to go for the second idea which was to put a line down as soon as we were let her drift in we lured the life raft down as soon as a touch deck one of the Fijians jumped out he told me to come and get in the TUI rocked back and the raft took off and I had my fingers in the outside of the cargo net so up I shot with the raft so my left hand started slipping off of the the netting and I looked up and he grabbed my hand like this and there was this big forge in hand and I said I'm okay and then he reached over with his other hand I literally grabbed the back of my pants and just flung me over his shoulder into the raft and then we were just there we were up at the top the other guys then had gone down below in the yacht to put him in a Johnson stretcher which is a kind of a canvas stretcher which christening on and you can attach it with a rope at the top and the bottom I could have been killed easily during that period of time that's the way I felt I really had more fear I think of the situation in the rescue then actually in the pitch pole having finished with this and maybe we hit it on souse towards the beacon positions the the first one we went to was heart alight I got to tell you within 20 minutes putting it on they were there and when they flew down I mean they were right over the wave table so they flew by us was a great sight they were not in great difficulty at that stage about the same time as they found and identified the source of that beacon we got yet another beacon again it was the big search what could it be initially we thought it might be called a master because it have been in the area for the southernmost yard Waikiki we do the news from Carrie Carrie confirms the inevitable the why Kiwi - why Kiwi - Carrie Carrie copy yes good evening John go to their strength free and clear your next 24 hour John is much the same unfortunately well as you probably gathered this at the position of that system and it's it's going to go right over the top of you and thank tomorrow yeah that's affirmative we said to John well what you Rican can we get out of it and he said no you even got a hope he's had just bettin down his last words were we could like really this whole operation was not about search it was about risky we basically knew where everything was we had to define the positions but we knew we like were the big thing was hella hit we were gonna get them off their best woman into another one so the process went on how do we risky Sofia the rescue centers found French Navy warship jacques-cartier enroute from Brisbane to town despite being 400 miles from Sofia they've been asked to attempt the risky then we receive the order to join Sophia at maximum speed the maximum speed of this vessel a practical speed is 14 knots so we traveled at maximum speed to reach position which required two days and at one point we even received a call from the rescue center in New Zealand asking us if we were travelling as fast as we could as they were the impression that every hour counts in the north the mana way at last has enough daylight to attempt to get bill and Robin off renfa [Music] amano I was still rolling very very heavily and I felt there was a very real danger of mano y rolling onto the yacht and injuring or killing the people before we before they could scramble up the nets I remember asking them if they were on the VHF if they were fairly spry the life of them both it confused them for a while while they tried to work out what I was what I was talking about and I said listen bro I mean what are we gonna have to do [Music] between the two of us we would try to get as close as we could and we would fire them a gun line [Music] so the first one they actually fired it actually hit the must I act I actually got it and I had it cleaned it off trying to hold it in because that the movement of the seat was just taking us both apartment together on whatever and it actually snapped the line the first time two or three times annually ran over us not through their fault but us trying to maneuver they've seized action we've actually disappeared under the bow mine the one at the time was really really strong so it was really hard to judge where that's the father projectile so it would go into vicinity of the yacht after he was got father at the shots I made the last shot which was on the port side over here to make it to the up - it wasn't an easy thing to do you're holding on to a guardrail here with this ain't got a rifle over here Sydney God knock the wind or whatever it was and really bared rolling on the ship and then trying to make a shot at a yacht it was disappearing behind big swells some stages you couldn't see one minute it was there any was gone quite frightening because I remember the expression on the lady's face and she just was dying for that you could just see she wanted that gun line over there so badly but that is when you're happy I got the line in the harnesses I put the first one on me and Robin had just fallen over so while she was sitting there I just put that thing over her and I went to straighten her up and the model I rolled that way and we sort of got blind every way and we've got to drag down the deck even before Rob knows probably it was at least it was on it was enough to hold down the deck and over the lines and Robin hit the staunch and and it's bent for storage and on the side there and thrown into the water straight into water 18 it was like pure didn't have any any consideration about going in we just reached from the four deck of the yacht straight into the water and then was up to the seaman and survey of workers on here possibly twenty people that pull this ton of meters of liner and there was a very very large wave anything in excess of 15 meters and we were the trough of this and they are up on the peak and you're actually looking up to these people as they're we're pulling the line and that's when I was under and I thought no I've got a lifejacket on all surface and I came up and actually looked up we were right in between the boughs of the catamaran so that was the first breath and then the next thing we know we're being dragged underwater mrs. Forbes didn't spend a lot of time under the water but I remember thinking that it would only be a minute or two before we got them on board and we would just have to pump her out once we got her once we got her back if they had fallen out of that of the harnesses or if the Rope had broken then I don't think we'd have seen them again [Music] [Music] then when they're on board I was even more relieved just went up to him we good on you I'm so proud of you I didn't even know this lady there was a tremendous sense of euphoria on the ship when Bill and Robin Forbes actually were landed into the ship a spontaneous cheer and a round of applause broke out it was it was really pleasant to have someone say to me you know welcome to some Kiwi hospitality as we were you know so there stood down onto the deck of the mana way but that would be a very long three minutes for those of us who were watching and I would imagine for the force as well the crews of hot lights of fear and silver shadow await rescue and they won't be the last quartermaster has still not been located they break Monday June 6 the Hercule we will by midday breaches silver shadow communications not easy cannot transmit on channel 16 well they could hear us and they could acknowledge what we were saying to them we had to communicate with them by a series asking them for a series of transmissions just short clicks on the radio answering yes or no to the questions so they said to us okay guys one two five five being you know you're in danger your lives are in danger just remember we've got a lot of other boats out here that have been that are breaking up at cetera et cetera give us a call one two five we think we're at two and I think the call came back hey that's a pretty gutsy call so we then had to ride that out they said the mono I and two other boats were steaming towards us and we had to ride that out from that afternoon through the night and into round about three o'clock the following day but that was the longest night of my life freed up to search further the Hercules makes a discovery which spells fresh hope for quartermaster three six seven one Wellington asked easily go ahead [Applause] [Music] you were quite elated when we found the life raft because life raft is very difficult to find in those sort of conditions we picked it up through the electronic locator beacon that it had broadcasting and managed to home to it from a short range and so when we actually saw the life raft first off we thought this is great we found them and it took us about another two or three passes when we flew down to that two hundred and fifty feet to actually determine it there was nobody in the life raft here we six seven one understand empty is the canopy up on the life raft over extremely difficult at that point to then refocus on okay or where could the people who've been who might have been in that raft or is quartermaster or the vessel from which this raft came still afloat somewhere else how do we go about finding this and it changes the priorities the canopy was up possibly [Applause] we used mix a long time that we could while it was still daylight after we found the life raft to look for people home a hopeless task perhaps because the visibility was so bad that we had to give it a try we had to try while it was still light we were obviously quite sad when we found that there was nobody in there at that stage though I guess we still retained hope that that maybe the life raft had broken away from the yacht and that we may still find the yacht so we did continue a search for the yacht itself unsuccessfully but the storm they call a bomb has yet to complete its path of destruction why Kiwi to waiting in the southern corner is the next to feel of shattering Roger I copy we're talking about being hit by a truck 70 Mars now whatever its and for captain I we're on our bank and all we feel is like boom boom into the wallet I know we're in the ceiling we've got the bid on top of us I remember saying to care I think we've gone all the way this time care trying to remain cool but she didn't hear it I just remember silence and then there wasn't in my mind a question of whether we came up or not which was interesting because I'd always had a little niggle on the back of my mind that well maybe that seven-ton key won't really pull us back up again but it did and I just had this sense that there's air flow in here they're like there's wind in here and there's this noise and it was water at my feet so suddenly they're you know the world had changed the night before the orion searching for quartermaster had spotted another yacht with no means of communication apart from some flares they'd been given at first i thought it was a star then I noticed it was moving star and then he must have turned directly away from me because then I saw this big bright you know the exhaust is what I was looking at he managed to find some flares ikeda given us so we set those off we had nothing else at Wallin pilot which is obvious later on because you don't have anything else to give us but I think it sort of raised our hopes a little bit and also the ICC that that might have been quartermaster another year we hear there's another yacht being found it's to the north of the year has been swamped and it's in trouble okay we train we put the Patriots on swine here near hell found autism before 100 I got unto the area and actually identify the yachters pilot we got another bacon just as awful everything sucked everything smeared that stank but also that changed your attitude towards the motor but it was the beacon from Waikiki we - and this the position of the beacon was well to the south of what would been the area would be not rating him for the past couple of days we had to decide Dean what we're going to do soon after daybreak the Orion brings man a wider pilot the yacht they'd spotted by Johnson so Craig popped out of the hatch in you turn around or as it came out of the hatch he said Barbara look at that rainbow it was huge 180 degree rainbow really thick bright colors and vivid as I turned around and we were both watching it and then all of a sudden this great white ship was lifted right up into the center of it was the mono I come up with Pilate about 8:30 on the Sunday morning the weather had moderated considerably and there was still a large seeds and the ship was rolling reasonably heavy but the wind had died down even so we couldn't see the yacht with any certainty in Pathmark and we had to use the Orion flying over the top and they were on top they flew over the art pulp when they're on top we took the bearing and steam for it we elected to send our rigid hull inflatable boat the room with a crew of three across to find out the identity and find out what assistance they required of course we thought we slow this ship we thought how are they gonna get us know that now that they're here what are we gonna have to do to get to the ship and then we saw that they had all of these small bus something but are they gonna be able to lower our light about a small boat in the water and sure enough they had that rib which they put in the water considering the size of the boat that we were in and even though it's got a jet you know it's quite maneuverable the seas were just huge around the city and and then I'll I turned around to look for the ship and the ship was gone there was nothing so basically we were out there by ourselves as well we we left the ship and we were giving bearings to come right or left and they were trying to direct the song we couldn't see pilot so my tune Tim Ryan look through this huge wave Thaksin was looking for the wave tonight giving him a nudge God and brought the yeah brought the rug around into it and up and over winds and carrying on [Music] got up alongside Coxon tried to get it as steady as possible and I've been moved up to the Bell the bellman held on to me it just so happened when I jumped I actually have a little bit too much and fell right into the middle of them into the boat right I was over the guardrails on to the top of the canopy Sanders was good I think once I got on there I was scared I was quite scared the adrenaline was really pumping a I got I had a plastic sheet that was writing on all the information and I remember looking down at the sheet and trying to write and I just couldn't my head and my hands were shaking I was like it was a skeet as they waged and and you know it seemed to us kind of silly that he steadies there he did he immediately gets his paper paper work out and after all of that that ordeal but but we were real glad to see him was not up to me to offer assistance to them this was passed me by the yeah by the command it was up to them to ask ask for assistance and what they would like us to do for them so basically I was just trying to prompt them into their and they wanted to get off quick [Music] [Music] probably you honey - wanted to make sure that we will you take us I just told them they could only take a few personal positions small bag of clothes and they there insisted on bringing these Colombian coffee beans with him and I wasn't about to just leave the boat out there and let somebody else take it but more so that the idea of it being a hazard to navigation so we decided that we would sink it before he left Greek was opening the seacock valves to flood the boat out the whole time that we were talking this was going on the rib was standing off just waiting for us to pull them in as we're because we're hitting going back to the going to the mono why we were watching it thinking about that but you know that's thinking about what it would it must what it's going to where it's going and what you know everything that we've left behind coming back and greed was at the back on the port side and the Coxon was in between greedy and barber and I was beside Greg and he was just so happy just kept on hugging me and just it was crying sort of [Music] the most dangerous part of the operation is in the recovery of the boat out of the water so you get a tremendous pendulum effect when she was swinging and you just can't control the boat so several times the boat came into reasonably heavy contact with the with the ship [Music] but it wasn't too bad in their horse gifts everyone held on very very tightly and certainly a lot of white knuckles both in the boat and on the bridge [Music] now it's time for the flora board hop like to confront their Savior new zealand fishing trawler santomero 18 150 foot 390 ton solid steel boat goes upwind of us and starts to drift down on us and it's rocking in these waves and all of a sudden I'm looking up at these holes is a tip up out of the water and tipped down and I'm saying my god if that thing tips down on top of it it's just gonna splinter and crush us how in the world are we gonna get from our boat onto that voted there was some time after they'd been disabled and before the mysterious white light was seen further north the realisation came to a head for D Deana and a message from another dimension I wasn't told until 3 a.m. the following morning but we were in the center of this vortex and that it was going to go down there period and that it was going to be a beacon in the center of this vortex for etherion ships to come through and she was also such an inky consciousness in Daryl's consciousness for 50 years of love and life that we had to get it off our back viviana now refuses to leave her catamaran which is not insured until captain Bruce white trauma center Maru 18 promises to sink hot lights at that very spot so the wind dies down the waves dive down he comes up alongside of us and we start slapping up on the side of him and all of a sudden why Hecht heart light up carried her up in the air and as she started to come down it's like she settled out right next to that opening and I just stepped off and I said hi boys good catch officially hot light breaks up but in reality and with great reluctance knowing the boat is still seaworthy the trawler captain honors his promise rammed the catamaran and sinks her at that spot later DV honor is to tell her own story pop like rescue at sea bad light started to break up in insight now monoeyes preparing to rescue the crew of silver shadow some 40 hours after they first long [Music] the sea conditions for the Silver Shadow rescue were horrendous the dreadful in in technical terms I guess the the sea or the swell was still running at six to eight meters the the wind was down to about 45 knots gusting up to about 55 this made the conditions for launching the river not very good at all at best and marginal had we not got to them will not come up with them by sunset which was fairly early on in the evening it was something like 17 20 then I would have had to think very much harder about whether to send the rim or not I saw a pig Peter just lying here and he had a scarf wrapped around them and a bit of duct tape a little duct tape the guys on would in a real good job and so we just had to strengthen it up a bit war with the duct tape roll grabbed his shoulder up that's where his in severe pain expecially move they got me out and on the deck of silver shadow and put me over the life lines so that when the tender came in close they said right now when it gets in close you know we are gonna push you into the tender cuz there's no way with one hand that I could have got in by myself so I've been held by two people we got rid of our lifelines so I was actually sitting on the deck and then Oh after a number of number of tries the two boats actually came together and they made that that's the decision now I knew that if I if I went down between those two boats my god I I don't think I would have had much chance I'd wit with a gear on I'd only have one hour so it had to be right here they go right [ __ ] hurry up [Music] I screamed when I hit the bottom of that tender flying across Peter trying to hold him down also protect him there's no all the waves just coming all over us so just help him breathe and stop a new drowning and we came off one or two waves and I can remember absolutely screaming because I was lying flat down on the boat and I was hurting pretty live their lives lost consciousness it once or twice here but once I've got him on the stretcher it was just slow going especially when we got everyone a few times and the whole stretcher came up off the ground and I was trying to hold Peter down we both just went up in the air and drop on the deck I need black girls a little bit severe pain and all the time I was telling him about this winching he's probably gonna get really hurt coming up on the side of the boat [Music] everything's been so smooth the guys on top down on the boat connected them up and just came up so smoothy the like as practice sales at the time it was the first time and tip of being going like that and once we got him up the other guys having up in the shops [Music] we're ready [Music] night has fallen when Keith an Ursula finally make contact with Jacques Katya Sophia was the second boat to roll and they've waited the longest of all some 48 hours for rescue now they too are about to face a whole new set of problems well they could hit many more people what made me anxious in this raging sea was at the mast or a rope would get caught in the screw propellers and if both of these were blocked we would not have been able to travel a solution which we chose was to go and pick them up in the zodiacs the first thing we did was watch the zodiac it wasn't a simple thing to do because it was rolling a lot launching in teams were difficult I think that it's then in the end that we felt at least I did most apprehensive because we were waiting and we could see the conditions of the sea we were going to launch the zodiac and before going down that's true there was a moment when I really wondered about the mission if it was really then I really realized a danger eventually we sort of saw the salasi act in the distance and it was up there and it was down there and I approached the ship about 10 times because as the sea was quite rough with waves of about five or six metres we couldn't stay alongside the Sofia yeah there was too big a difference in height between the ship and the zodiac all of a sudden they were alongside and one of the divers which flew through the air over the top of what she and landed in the cockpit as soon as it was time again to approach interact at the right time I had to jump into this early it's true she was lighter I pushed her into the zodiac and jadon retrieved her below took delivery of her the man first he had a stronger tie to his ship I mean he wanted to check everything see that his ship was probably secured before leaving and so on I reckon on the on the main bulkheads in the saloon a note to Sophia saying thank you for being such a beautiful lady we'll be back for you he was anticipating salvaging the ship I was anxious to get him on board so we more or less had to tear him away from his ship and then when he decided the jump he didn't let go the rail I mean that when we pushed him he didn't let go and step over the edge of the ship he was hanging late holding onto the rail then the zodiac came closer held him and made him let go of the rail using force because he was tense the woman was screaming it didn't help much once the two survivors were on board the shark Katya we had to decide what we were going to do with the Sophia well the Sophia was an abandon ship which could be a navigation hazard if you don't believe well I went to see Kate's and Ursula in the sickbay and told them that we were going to request instructions from the rescue center about what to do about this ship the other we received from the rescue center was to sink for Sophia he didn't want to have to tell me and all I could do is actually except to make it easier for him he he didn't want to have to tell me he didn't have to do it and the method of doing it was pretty abhorrent I asked him how he was going to do it and he said that they had a 20 millimeter gun on board and I really what can you do you just accept that gooshie a nazi sakis when I told beneath his feet he said to me that's all I have if you destroy that ship it will destroy a part of my a part of myself but remember we said we shook hands as though it was not neither of us one of any partner but it had to be done doctors at 190 kilometers so we asked the rescue center for confirmation that we really had to destroy the vessel and they said in the air now if we fix the GPS position accurately that they were able to issue a warning notice to navigators Sophia at that stage was reprieved but not retrieved why Kiwi to Z third was the last beacon still activated and a Norwegian freighter and nomadic Duchess has agreed to attempt a rescue of skipper John his wife Catherine they're three sailing companions the most frightful time that we had was actually being against with our 16-ton and their 35,000 ton going up and down maybe six or so meters along this side and smashing into each other their boat was heeling backwards and forwards and allowed me to create and you know they come crashing down on you and you had to jump from our boat which had no mass no sanctions on that side nothing to hold on to except down here and every time it hurt it's sort of throwing you off balance and somehow you have to time your jump at the top of a stroke when the boats were together when the ladder was lined up and make that leap and if you must or if you did it at the wrong time you were going to be sandwich [Music] there was the first time in five days that we didn't have a beacon operating in the area they've got the beacon they switched it off in those silence the electronic silence was great our boat went underneath the back of their boat which is a 35,000 tons have started descending on the back of my Kiwi and so as she pulled out from underneath the transom area of the ship the Deacon the coach Ruth had been smashed and a number of places with big gaping holes in that stage you could see it was only going to be a matter of a short time for breaking waves to go into the boat and eventually sink her the Orions and hercules for 117 hours the mono I attended over ninety eight hours beyond its normal call of duty Kerikeri marine radio maintained continuous watch for 70 hours and the rescue center was activated for 103 yards Diesel's in this case we're well equipped in most cases they're very well equipped those that had 406 beacons on they made our job very easy we knew what the target was from the word go those who had a pubs on board we didn't know what the target was but we knew where it was and we could then find out those that didn't that had no beacons on board all I can say to them is they're very lucky they were found by accident have you set out to become a recluse and you make friends and you have family then don't do it just have a bit of respect for the ones that will perhaps be left behind thinking about you and probably sparing their lives to even go and look for you well I keep it keeps coming back to me you know why I keep asking why why did it you know why did it have to happen to us we we had good because we had always taking the right precautions and as far as the right routes in the right time of year and and I keep trying to trying to make some kind of a meaning out of that but it's done again and I remember that that we weren't the only boat out there there were how many 35 some boats out there at the time and that there was there was unfortunately the crew of one boat never never made it home and with that then I just it's I I forget about it yeah about my business thing I've always been a person that's survived I've been a survivor I've been and never been in any situation like this before and you don't really know and tell you there but I've always been one that could muddle through some way whether it be that or just wither take charge if if I had to but like I say you really don't know until you have to do it you know why Kiwi what he'd so much for us had been our focus for two solid years it had been the object of you know all our dreams and hopes and plans for next five years and it was it was the way that we were going to achieve so many different things we're going to do learn so much see so much experience heaps friends were going to be able to join us family was going to join us and you're traveling without a bite it hasn't really got that appeal it's no longer gotten the objective isn't there that was the experience that changed my life in my direction and what I'm going to be doing for the rest of this lifetime here in this incarnation this life this planet I don't care how hard it every day we wake up now we are waiting for a phone call to say somebody's sighted Sophia and he's in here I should totally have a good cry it was prayers pretty he really was yeah we got through it and and we're lucky I just feel sorry for those people that last year and lost their boats lost everything their dreams had been shattered last incident Maureen was fairly upset with the quartermaster because she felt that perhaps you know she could have done more and we sat down together and we discussed it between us and said well you know I explained knowing the weather side of it better than she did and problem and probably a bit more sea experience too because I've done more blue water sailing we had to sit down and and console ourselves but I suppose that was made hard because it's the first lives we've lost in all the years we've been operating and I guess that in a Salafist [Music] quartermaster quartermaster kiri kiri radio calling to you copy two weeks after bill and Robin Forbes were rescued off renfe another strange white light slid in Orion to investigate renfa was found intact another yacht in the area took it under tow to Tonga and subsequently bill and Robin completed their Pacific cruise three months after Peter O'Neal and his crew abandoned silver shadow was located six hundred miles to the north of Nemea lien lost again a month later it was found wrecked on a reef in Vanuatu pillaged and unfit for Salvage and six months to the day after condemned Sophia was given its last-minute reprieve it turned up 200 miles away and was returned to Keith's inertia oh look at this doesn't that I've been looking for that all over the place apart from the empty life raft there had been no further sightings of quartermaster and to date no wreckage has been found [Music] [Music] you this program was made with the help of your broadcasting fee so you can see more of New Zealand on air

Channel: Zoom Sails

Views: 380,306

Rating: 4.7548909 out of 5

Keywords: storm sailing, storm, cruising, pacific storm, bluewater

Id: Aa7KxGtUlAA

Length: 90min 26sec (5426 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 29 2020