Into the Storm

by Dennis N. t. Perkins

Shark 20 ultimately found Sword of Orion and rescued three crew members, including Darren Senogles and Steve Kulmar. With a low fuel state, the chopper had no choice but to return to shore, leaving six men aboard.

  A third helicopter, Tiger 70, took off from Merimbula in the very early morning of December 28. Because of the dangers of a night operation, the chopper hovered until daylight to execute the rescue. Rob Kothe smashed his head during the winching, but all six remaining Sword of Orion crew members were safely extracted from the wreckage.

  A search for Glyn Charles continued until 9:30 p.m. that night. An entry in the Australia Search and Rescue Briefing Notes stated simply: “Target—Man in water wearing yellow suit and harness. No buoyancy aids.” Glyn Charles was never seen again.

  20

  General Mayday—An Official Catastrophe

  The strong winds and waves were nothing that superb sailors couldn't manage. Southerly busters had prepared them for big seas. But there was no way of preparing for the worst of what this storm would bring: the destructive force of the rogue waves. The kings. The freaks.

  Winston Churchill

  About 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, December 27, the Winston Churchill was sailing quite well. The winds were strong, around 55 knots, and the waves were sizeable but not particularly frightening. Two crew members were on watch: Richard Winning, the owner and skipper, and John Dean. Winning was an accomplished sailor, and he was comfortable at the helm. True, the weather was rough, but there seemed to be no cause for alarm.

  Suddenly, one of the deadly freak waves appeared. Winning never considered himself very good at judging the height of waves, but he saw this one coming. He wasn't sure about the size, but it was higher than the boat's 60-foot mast. The wave was a deadly vertical cliff of green water.

  Winning knew what to do. He wanted to get up the mammoth wave and over the top as quickly as possible. They started to climb, but Winston Churchill didn't have the momentum, and without enough speed it was impossible to get over the massive wave. The wave picked up the boat and threw the yacht down on its side.

  Winston Churchill didn't roll, but it hit the wave like a brick wall and was knocked down so severely that it suffered serious damage. Winning and Dean were instantly swept over the side. Three windows near the navigation station were smashed, and 6 feet of the boat had been ripped away. The damage above the water was significant, but it wasn't the biggest problem. Winston Churchill was shattered below the waterline as well.

  Winning and Dean made it back aboard, and Bruce Gould took over the helm. He asked Stanley to check below and see what was going on. Whatever was happening, it wasn't good. It was obvious they were taking on a lot of water, and the boat was sinking lower and lower in the water. The crew got the two life rafts on deck, and everyone put on life jackets and waited to see what would happen. Gould had a gut feeling they weren't going to be there for long.

  As Winning got ready to send a Mayday, he discovered that their long-range HF radio was out of commission, and the main GPS, which would establish their exact position, had been saturated and was also not working. Their portable GPS was not functioning properly either, so Winning had to estimate their position. Believing that they were about 20 miles southeast of Twofold Bay, Winning used their shorter-range VHF radio to transmit the chilling Mayday message that echoed below deck on the AFR Midnight Rambler.

  Approximately 5:30 p.m.—about an hour after they had been knocked down—the crew abandoned Winston Churchill. There were two life rafts on deck: an oblong life raft designated Raft A, intended to hold six people, and a circular life raft designated Raft B, designed for four. John Stanley, John Gibson, John Dean, and Michael Bannister climbed into Raft A. They were joined by Bill Psaltis’ friend Jim Lawler. Richard Winning, Bruce Gould, Michael Ryan, and Paul Lumtin climbed into Raft B.

  Initially, the two rafts were roped together, but the line quickly broke, separating the two groups. Raft A stayed upright until just after midnight on the 27th, when it was hit by a large wave. The raft flipped upside down, and the five men found themselves standing on the canopy that had previously been the roof. They were surprised to find that the raft was as stable upside down as it was right side up, if not more so. In their inverted position, they weren't thrown around as much by the waves. But there was a problem: They were running out of air in the confined space.

  Faced with a critical shortage of oxygen, the survivors decided to cut a small hole in the floor—now the roof—of the raft, hoping that oxygen would enter through the incision. It worked, and they were able to push the top up and down like a bellows, pumping air into the raft. But ten minutes later, there was a large explosion of water. The raft was thrown a considerable distance, spinning the men around inside. They were tossed violently, but at least Raft A was now flipped upright.

  A series of large waves slammed into the raft, and each time the men were thrown around inside. The section of the floor that they had cut continued to tear, and the canopy was disintegrating. They clung to the raft for a long time until they were hit by one wave that Gibson described as appearing “without any warning at all, without even a sound, at terrific speed into what became tumbling white water. It was an extraordinary experience. I was traveling at very fast speeds. It was as if I'd cracked the biggest wave of my whole life. And I continued on in this manner. It was just a rushing, tumbling, noise deafening experience.”1

  When the wild ride came to an end, only John Gibson and John Stanley were still clinging to the inflatable tubing of the raft. They could see two figures in the distance, and one—believed to be Jim Lawler—activated a strobe light. What was left of the raft was buffeted by the wind and waves, and Gibson and Stanley clung tightly as the men who had been thrown out of the raft disappeared from view.

  Gibson and Stanley held on to the raft throughout the remainder of the night and till dawn on Monday the 28th. Rescue aircraft flew by, and the two men tried frantically to get their attention by waving a yellow life jacket. Finally, at 8 p.m. that night, they heard planes overhead. Gibson flashed his personal strobe light, and Stanley signaled with a handheld flashlight. Between the two of them, they got the attention of the aircraft and were eventually rescued by helicopter.

  Like Raft A, Raft B floated upright for a while, then capsized in the heavy seas, ejecting the survivors. But the crew in Raft B attempted to flip the life raft upright again. It was a dangerous operation that required one person to remove his life preserver and swim under the raft. Richard Winning volunteered to undertake the mission. As the skipper of the Winston Churchill, he considered it his duty to take the chance.

  Winning swam down to the entrance of the canopy, which was now submerged, got through the opening, and then made his way to the raft's upturned bottom. Using a strap attached to the raft's bottom, he managed to get Raft B right side up. The other three crew members then reentered the raft.

  Sometime in the night, Raft B was again flipped by a wave. Once more, Richard Winning took off his life vest, swam outside the overturned raft, and righted it. On each occasion, if Winning had lost his grip, he would have been swept away by the waves, with no life preserver. His chances of survival would have been virtually nonexistent.

  No one was sure how it happened, but Life Raft B also developed a slit in its floor. The lower tube of the raft started to leak. With part of the pump missing, the men had no way of inflating the tubing. They eventually found themselves jammed together in a standing position as the floor of the raft took on a V shape. Realizing they had to do something, the men improvised a way to connect the pump to the lower inflatable tube. Then they pumped and bailed until they were able to restore the raft to a semblance of its former shape.

  In the afternoon of Monday the 28th—nearly a day after abandoning ship—the survivors in Life Raft B sighted a fixed-wing aircraft. Using flares, they were able to attract the attention of the pilot, and some thirty minutes later they were all rescued by helicopter.

  Business Post Naiad

&n
bsp; At 5 p.m., faced with an onslaught of emergencies, the Australian Maritime Safety Administration (AMSA) declared a Mayday for the general area southeast of Eden. It was now an official catastrophe.

  Twenty minutes after the AMSA declaration, Business Post Naiad was hit by a large wave beam-on, directly from the side. Four crew members were on deck, and Naiad went straight over, rolling 360 degrees in about ten seconds. When the boat came back up, the scene was a familiar one. The mast was broken, the cabin roof was damaged, windows were smashed, and everything below deck was in disarray.

  The crew members on deck had been saved by their safety harnesses. Though thoroughly soaked, they managed to climb back on board. Navigator Peter Keats sent a Mayday, and they started the engine. They agreed to set a course for Gabo Island and to take shelter from the storm.

  Everyone had survived, but the men who had been washed overboard started to have difficulty moving their limbs. About two hours after the roll, Business Post Naiad requested a rescue helicopter to winch three crew members who were suffering from seasickness and hypothermia.

  Four hours later, they were struck again. This time, the boat did not immediately recover. Two crew members were on deck, Robert Matthews and Philip Skeggs. Matthews was trapped in the back of the cockpit but found an air pocket. He was able to breathe long enough to unclip his safety harness from its tether and swim to the surface. Matthews sat on a piece of the rigging—either the boom or the broken mast—for a couple of minutes until Naiad was struck again. Miraculously, the wave righted Naiad and threw Matthews back onto the deck.

  Recovering from the ordeal and simultaneously trying to steer Naiad, Matthews saw Skeggs pinned down under a pile of ropes, about 6 feet from his original position. Matthews shouted for help, not realizing that the rest of the crew was trapped below.

  The capsized yacht had filled with water, and everything below had become dislodged. The freezer had emptied its contents, and the engine, operational at the time of the capsize, had covered everything with diesel fuel. Debris blocked the hatch leading to the deck.

  The crew below tried to kick out the hatch to get on deck. Bruce Guy, the skipper, and crewman Stephen Walker were trying to push out the life rafts onto the deck. Suddenly Guy arched his back, as though there was a severe pain in his chest. His eyes rolled back, and Walker grabbed him. He knew instantly that Guy was having a heart attack. Walker sat down with Guy's head in his lap. Guy was breathing when they sat down, and Walker continued to hold his head, unsure if the skipper was still alive.

  The crew below heard Matthews calling out to Skeggs, and they scrambled to help. They were able to get him out from under the heavy ropes, but he was unresponsive. Shayne Hansen and Matthew Sherriff attempted CPR, but he was still unresponsive.

  Philip Skeggs was gone. Bruce Guy had died in Walker's arms. The engine and all of the electronics aboard Naiad had failed. The crew had no radio and no means of communicating. Two life rafts were placed over the side of the boat, but a large wave carried them away. The survivors were left in a desperate situation.

  The seven remaining crew members of Business Post Naiad were located and rescued by helicopter early on the morning of December 28. Bruce Guy and Philip Skeggs were left on board, and the boat was eventually towed to shore by the police launch Nemesis.

  Kristy McAlister and Michelle Blewitt flew over the Naiad later that day. They had been assigned to search the area, which was the focal point of emergency signals. As they flew over the boat they saw a body on the deck.

  Unaware that people had already been winched off the boat, the pilot radioed Australian Search and Rescue to inform them of their discovery: “We've come across the Business Post Naiad, there is a person lying on the deck.”

  The response was stark: “No, negative, that boat has already had people winched off it. The person on it is dead. Disregard, keep going on your search.”

  21

  AFR Midnight Rambler—Listen to That

  The airwaves were filled with sounds of anguish and desperation. Aboard AFR Midnight Rambler, the crew listened to the frightening Maydays and man overboard alerts. They heard helicopters coming to the rescue of stricken boats, searching for people lost in the water.

  These were men they knew. Friends they had shared time with and sailed with, not just competitors. Some, like Jim Lawler, they knew personally. It was sobering, and everyone on board the Rambler knew the danger. A wave that had knocked down and dismasted another boat could have just as easily crushed them.

  Ed, Arthur, and Bob were steering magnificently, and the members of the crew were supporting each other with exceptional teamwork. But it was impossible to ignore the tragedies unfolding around them. VC Off-shore Stand Aside had been hit to the north, less than 20 miles away. Winston Churchill, close behind them, had sunk. Sword of Orion had met its fate about 20 miles to the south. And Business Post Naiad had rolled about 10 miles to the east. It was excruciatingly apparent that AFR Midnight Rambler was in the bull's-eye of a deadly target. (See illustration on p. 120.)

  Bob Thomas was steering the boat as straight as he could. With Mix blocking the waves, he hung on, ducked as low as he could, and let the water break over him. Three times the waves ripped Bob from the helm and slammed him down into the cockpit. Each time he would lunge toward the tiller, push it over hard, and focus on getting over the next one.

  Bob was a disciplined master mariner, trained in lifeboat drills and sea safety. He had faith in his boat, and he believed the little Rambler would survive. But with the mayhem surrounding them, he needed to prepare the crew for the worst.

  Abandoning ship is always a last resort, but sometimes it has to be done. The crew of Winston Churchill had no choice but to take to their life rafts. If the Rambler reached that point, Bob wanted to make sure that they would leave the boat in the right way. They would not throw the life raft over the side of the boat, inflate it, and expect everything to work out. It would be a planned, methodical operation.

  With Ed at the helm, Bob went down below to brief the off-watch crew on everything they would need to do if the boat went down. He calmly explained the process and assigned tasks to each member of the crew. Some were to get the life raft on deck. Others were to grab the ditch bag, which they dubbed the panic pack. The panic pack held flares, the EPIRB, and other essentials for survival. They discussed other things, including water bottles and flashlights. The irony was that no one—especially Bob—exhibited any display of panic when talking about the panic pack.

  “If we have to go to a life raft, it's got to be a very controlled procedure so that we all get into the life raft,” Bob said. He was emphatic in saying that the process of leaving the Midnight Rambler had to be precise. Otherwise, two or three men could jump into the raft and be blown away, leaving the rest of them alone on a sinking boat.

  After briefing the crew down below, Bob climbed on deck and told Ed about what had just happened. Ed understood and agreed: They needed to be ready for anything. Then, while Arthur steered and Mix spotted waves, Bob repeated the instructions he had given below.

  It was an intense moment. As bad as conditions were, they knew things were going to get worse. The fact that Bob was now talking matter-of-factly about the life raft meant that they were headed into further trouble.

  The winds were blowing around 65 knots, and waves continued to crash over the boat. The wind, screaming through the rigging, made conversation almost impossible. But Bob talked calmly, speaking right next to their ears.

  “A lot of boats are in trouble,” he explained, “and conditions ahead are as serious as those behind.” Bob repeated his instructions about the panic pack, the spare EPIRB, the flares, the location of the lifeboats, and how they should be deployed. Finally, he reiterated the cardinal rule for abandoning ship: “Always step up into a life raft, never down.” The meaning was clear: AFR Midnight Rambler needed to be unquestionably sinking before they would even consider getting into a life raft.

  Though Bob went t
hrough the whole process very deliberately, it hit Mix squarely just how serious conditions were. If bigger boats ahead and behind them were sinking, what chance did a 35-foot boat have? They could only beat this storm with a combination of teamwork, skill, and luck. They had no control over luck, but they were skilled sailors. And they continued to work together with extraordinary cohesion.

  At the helm, Arthur thought that the faces of the waves were about the length of a football field. They were big, steep stretches of water, and the only advantage the small Rambler had was its maneuverability. Arthur would move across the face of the wave, and, if he didn't like what he saw to his left, he would go right.

  In the troughs, the breeze would drop and the Rambler was protected by the face of the waves. Arthur would get a brief relief, but it wasn't much. He was still surrounded by deafening noise and spew. It was just that the boat was a little bit more in control. But soon the Rambler would be sucked into the next wave.

  Arthur would feel the boat being pulled ahead, and the Rambler would rise up the face of the wave. As they reached the top, the boat would be hit by the full intensity of the wind, and the Rambler would tilt dramatically. With rain and spew hitting him in the face, Arthur would contemplate his next move. He had to find a path through the next wave.

  Steering a boat in these conditions required total concentration. It was exhausting. Ed's ability at the helm was unsurpassed—there was no question about that—and he would bear the heaviest burden. But AFR Midnight Rambler had two others who could drive and give him relief from the arduous task of steering. And they also had a system so that fresh people would be on deck every hour.

  In these conditions, there were going to be mistakes, but minimizing errors and recovering quickly were critical. The Ramblers’ ability to share the helm meant that there were far fewer blunders than if one person had been steering without relief. And their reflexes were far better when they needed to react.