Sailor recounts mid-Pacific rescue from burning yacht

by Murray Vereker-Bindon on 29 Jul 2015

Three sailors, inlcuding two New Zealanders, were rescued from the Pacific Ocean after their yacht caught fire. - mid-Pacific rescue after yacht burns MV CAP CAPRICORN

Extracts from a Boating NZ article - Sunny Deck, a Bavaria 51 Ocean I found in Mexico, was launched in 2000 and built for ocean cruising. My wife Yolanda agreed to the purchase and also a Pacific cruise as long as I engaged Victor Campos, her Mexican captain for 10 years.

On 13 April 2015 Victor, Alan, a Mexican friend and fellow Kiwi Sam Boyd, departed Acapulco for Hiva Oa in the Marquesas – a 25-day leg without landfall, then on through French Polynesia. Alan left the boat at Bora Bora and we sailed to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands.

After leaving Rarotonga, we had three days of good sailing – then: disaster.

Approximately 350 miles from Tonga, at 1.30am, 24 June, Sam and I were asleep in the aft cabin. Victor was on watch when he smelled smoke. He left the cockpit and opened the engine port in the galley. Thick, toxic smoke belched out. Victor knew immediately it was dire.

'Out! Out!' he yelled.

Sam and I were instantly awake; the cabin was thick with smoke. With only the clothes we were wearing, we exited the cabin, past the open engine port and up the companionway to the aft deck.

With oxygen in the engine bay, the fire had ignited -- flames were coming out of the aft cabin hatch directly above the bunks where we had been sleeping.

We released the RFD liferaft which immediately inflated and floated 20 metres behind the yacht. Victor grabbed the EPIRB from the cockpit wall, already scorched black from the fire coming through the companionway. He grabbed three life jackets and the grab bag on the other side of the cockpit and we stepped into the raft.

In other circumstances we would have stayed tied to the yacht to present a bigger target for aerial or sea searches but with 700 litres of diesel onboard, plus LPG and some petrol, we wanted to be clear of any explosion. We cut the rope to the yacht, accidentally puncturing the lower of the two pontoons in the process and severely jeopardising half our buoyancy.

Repairing the raft and sending a distress signal were our top priorities. We found the repair kit but in the dim light, even with the torch, we were unable to read the instructions. With a partially deflated pontoon in the heavy sea-state, everything was wet, and the instructions literally disintegrated in my hands. We later found that what we were trying to use for the repair was intended for another purpose.

While Victor and Sam persevered with the repair, I looked after the epirb. I held it up as high as I could, outside the raft through the air vent, for the next two hours.

As the pontoon deflated, the floor sagged and filled with water. As fast as we bailed, waves broke over us, flattening the canopy on to us and forcing more water into the raft.

The wind was around 20 knots and the swell was three to four metres with breaking waves. There was constant movement in the raft and no comfort.

We calmly discussed our options, never doubting we would be rescued. The mostly likely scenario seemed to be a boat from Tonga and that could take up to two days to reach us.

There was plenty of food and water in the raft and our grab bag. As we were sitting in water, hypothermia was my greatest concern.

After around two hours I said a prayer in English, and Victor said one in Spanish. Less than an hour later we heard a noise. Victor unzipped the canopy expecting to see an aircraft.

It was a ship, sounding its horn. It was still several miles away. We set off a flare and the ship responded with another blast as it continued toward our position. Within half an hour the ship was standing off around 200m from us. She was huge: the 220m, 51,000-tonne container ship Cap Capricorn.

Then came the hard part.

Rafts are not designed for paddling, even though they are equipped with two small paddles. Helped by wind and sea, we paddled as hard as we could but I was in an awkward position and starting to feel that I couldn't keep going. The ship was still 200 metres away. The others encouraged me to keep paddling.

We passed across the bow of Cap Capricorn, but the captain turned the ship 360 degrees to again position us off her windward side. This time we almost passed astern, but the captain reversed the huge ship. Finally, after more than an hour, we came alongside the pilot's rope ladder.

First Sam made a grab for it. The raft rose and fell on the swells, banging into the ship's side. When Sam was part way up, it was my turn. I missed the ladder on the first grab as the raft descended into a swell. Then I had my hands but not my feet on the ladder as the raft sank again.

I took each rung one at a time; I knew it was a life-or-death climb. My lifejacket had been holed by the flames so if I fell off the ladder I would drown.

Victor was last to get on the ladder. As I reached the top the crew asked me if there was anything else I needed in the raft. I said it would be good to get the epirb to ensure it was no longer transmitting.

They began to haul the raft up the side of the ship but, with the weight of water inside it, the raft collapsed and disappeared.

Epirb signal to Europe and back

Our epirb signal had been detected by Australia Rescue Control Centre which alerted Germany RCC in Bremen; the epirb was registered to an address there, which applied to Sunny Deck's previous owner. When I bought Sunny Deck I had notified an Australian contact on the epirb of the change of ownership and new crew list. I had received no response but assumed it had been changed.

Bremen RCC contacted the daughter of Sunny Deck's previous owner in Spain. She knew the yacht had been sold and contacted her brother in Mexico who called my wife Yolanda in Mexico City.

Yolanda called my son in New Zealand, who had by then been contacted by NZ RCC and was trying to contact me on the satellite phone.

RCC Papeete advised that Sunny Deck had left Papeete with four crew so there was concern that one of us had been lost until RCC Rarotonga advised that a crew member had left Sunny Deck in Rarotonga.