Moody 38 Flying Start Rescues Refugees

Web Crew of Flying Start relaxing on their boat in St Lucia BW Media

When Nick and Susan Lewis of Bridgend in South Wales set off with their two friends Jonathan and Pauline Musson of Swansea in their Moody 38, Flying Start, to cross the Atlantic with the ARC, they were looking for an adventure.  But never in their wildest imagination could they have forecast – or wanted – the ordeal ahead.

I caught up with Nick Lewis in St Lucia, the day after the final ARC Awards ceremony, where he and his crew had become the heroes of the evening by winning both the Humanitarian and Environment Award, and the Spirit of the ARC award.

Nick is engaging and gregarious, with a good Welsh sense of humour, and a comic turn of phrase.   But the story that he has to tell is difficult for him to relive – several times during his story Nick becomes emotional and has to stop, and pause to recover his composure:

‘We’d been out from Las Palmas for about four days when John spotted what he thought was a whale about a mile away – a gray shape.   The waves were very disturbed, and eventually we could see what we thought was a rhythmic movement – we thought maybe it was somebody rowing across the Atlantic.   And I thought if we went over, we could send a message to the rower’s families, so we turned, to get nearer.

‘But as we got closer, we could see it was an open boat - there were no oars, no sails, no motor, in fact no method of propulsion.   Then we counted eight people on board.

‘It was then that we realised that they may be illegal immigrants.   Their clothing was more like wraps than clothes and only the shoulders and heads were above the side of the boat.  They were calling for Agua – Spanish for water -  and we were frightened – we only had 4 people on the boat and we didn’t know how desperate they were, or whether they were armed – so we passed by them closely, we went at speed and passed over bottles of water.’

So the crew of Flying Start then reported what they had found to the ARC control.   The ARC’s response was to agree to contact Las Palmas, and told Flying Start to continue with their journey.

But that was not to last for long – only half an hour later, Las Palmas Control contacted the yacht directly and requested them to go back and find the refugee boat.  When they couldn’t locate the boat, an aircraft was sent to assist, and directed Flying Start back to the drifting boat.  They were then told they ‘must’ ‘will’ ‘must’ stay by the boat until a hospital ship, fourteen hours away, arrived.

Nick Lewis, virtually ordered now to remain with the unknown boat, could have resented their exclusion from the ARC, the event they had dreamed of for so long.

‘No, We felt happy that we were there, even though we were told we were now out of the ARC.   Actually I had found it difficult to move away from them, so now at least we were there. We were frightened, as I said, because we didn’t know the situation on the boat - but now that the authorities were involved, we simply had to wait for them to take over what we had started.

‘What worried me was we didn’t have very much fuel, and with the very high seas it was hard to keep them in sight.  There was a lot of windage on their boat, and they kept coming up in a different spot. We patterned a figure of eight around them – kept just about 30 metres away from them, circling all the time’. 

By this time, Nick and his crew realised that something very strange had occurred with this boat.  It was drifting away into the middle of the Atlantic, towards the Americas, but it was still unknown how much danger the yacht might be in if they came too close.   Nick describes their feelings aboard the yacht.

‘We realised that if we lost sight of them we might not be able to locate them again – clearly they were desperate for some help  - it was mixed emotions I guess – and we were concentrating SO HARD on keeping them in sight.  We were so frightened we would lose them that we didn’t THINK so much about our own fear then – they had no radar etc and it was a wooden boat so they may never have been found again – that’s why the authorities wanted us to stay with them

‘And then the night came and that was even more difficult – even though we had the moon in the beginning – fine when the moon was behind them but when the moon was on the other side – nothing reflective except a small area of white paint on one side about two foot long someone had painted years and years before– that little bit of white paint was quite useful.’

So for the rest of that long night, Flying Start stayed near the stricken boat, still unaware of what and who was aboard, taking watches to keep them in sight

Las Palmas stayed in touch, and asked the inevitable question: ‘Why don’t you throw them a rope?’.  

But on board Flying Start, unaware of the refugee situation, they discussed the matter but decided not to do this.  ‘Well you know, we were worried – frightened – we didn’t know if they were armed, there were more of them than us, and we didn’t know at that time how bad – how affected that they were, we didn’t know it at the time, but they were in no fit state to be a danger to us – and..’ here Nick pauses to regain control of his voice,  ‘..we didn’t know there were seven more people lying in the bottom of the boat.’

At 2.30am they heard from the Hospital Ship – the Esperante del Mar, by Radio, and the ship finally reached them by 4.30am, remaining about two miles distant, from where they sent three ribs, heavily armed, one with a canopy.

Nick describes the transfer of the refugees from the boat to the hospital ship

‘They were very professional – The officer in charge was saying:‘

‘We won’t hurt you.  We will search you, and we will take you aboard, one by one, and take you to the hospital ship.’

‘When the process was over the Captain of Esperante del Mar thanked them and asked ‘Is there anything you need?’

As Flying Start had by now used a considerable amount of fuel, they replied that they could use a little fuel.

Nick continues: ‘Another rib came out with four enormous Spanish sailors with three containers of fuel – each of the drums with about 80 LITRES EACH!.  I couldn’t lift them over the rail!  We were then in danger of arriving in St Lucia with more fuel than we left Las Palmas with!

And now the Captain of the Esperante del Mar tells them what they had found aboard the drifting boat.

‘He told us that..’ and again it is clearly difficult for Nick to relive the moment, ‘..the boat left Africa with 34 people on board, and they had now taken only 15 people off, one of whom was dead, and two in a serious condition.

‘They had not talked to us, except to ask for agua – they were probably too exhausted  - to have lost so many people from their boat.’

Throughout our conversation Nick has recounted the experiences with great emotion, and is now glad to return to happier subjects.

Flying Start was released from responsibility by 7.30am – the ordeal had lasted for seventeen long hours – and they returned to their original position before contacting the ARC to request re-entry into the rally.  This over, they set off to catch the rest of the fleet.

I ask Nick about the rest of the journey.

‘It was fabulous  - We had one day when there was no wind – pilot whales, tremendous of shows of dolphins – two bigger whales within 20 metres of the boat in the opposite direction.’

There were more surprises in store, however, on the evening of the Grand Finale of the ARC in St Lucia, when the crew became the heroes of the evening, winning those two awards – the Humanitarian and Environmental Award, and the Spirit of the ARC.

Asked how that made him feel, Nick answers: ‘It made us very proud to wind the Award – we were very overwhelmed by the first award, and…’ and now he is laughing, ‘…we didn’t really hear what they were saying when they introduced the second award.’

‘However, naturally we all thoroughly enjoyed it – and it was more special as we were the only Welsh boat in the ARC!‘

But back to the refugees, and Nick explains how the extraordinary incident occurred…  ‘As it had no means of propulsion, it is thought that the boat was towed from Africa to within 30-40 miles.  Apparently this is normal – what they do then is cut the rope and the boat drifts to the Canaries.  This boat had not drifted onto the Canaries, but been caught by the Canaries current, so swept away and their next stop would have been Central America or the West Indies.’

Web Nick Lewis Skipper of Flying Start, tells his story © BW Media

There’s little doubt that all those aboard the boat would have perished had Flying Start not come upon them and valiantly stood by until the authorities arrived.

One can only wonder how many other boatloads of refugees have had the same fate, but not so lucky as to be found by a passing yacht