Boxing Day

Much food, much family, good cheer...

A 2XS dinghy story

We heard a horrendous story the other day from one of our young sailing friends, Andy, from another yacht travelling around the islands of Vanuatu.  He and a group of friends had gone into shore in their tender, and were on their way back to their yacht when everything went wrong.  A big freak wave capsized their tender and everyone was tossed into the sea.  The emergency flares didn’t ignite; the VHF radio failed; all safety equipment was washed away; the boat didn’t float on the surface, it wallowed around under water; nobody from their yacht was looking out for them.  Various ropes and cables wound themselves wound themselves around poor Andy’s legs as he was trying to hold the baby aloft… yes they had a very small baby in the tender, with his distraught mother…The baby was passed from one person to another as they tried to get things sorted, but the poor little thing kept swallowing great gulps of ocean – the waves were by this time very big.  They eventually managed to get mother and baby more or less sitting on the upturned tender, with big waves threatening to heave them both back into the sea.  Andy and one of the other girls, Alana, decided to swim for help.  But the tide was running very strongly and they hardly made any progress at all.  As well as this, Andy had emptied the fuel containers, to try to create some sort of buoyancy support.  The fuel ran all over him and combined with the sea water to create some dreadful new compound – he was covered with what looks like acid burns.  Alana is a strong swimmer, and was very confident of her ability to reach the yacht.  Andy was not so sure; he too is a very strong fit swimmer, but he knows about the sea; Alana had only ever swum in rivers and pools.  He took with them a raft of coconuts which they had obtained on shore with a view to feasting rather than floating.  He could tell they weren’t really making any progress at all, and he was very much aware than they were a tempting and tasty target for the famous Sharks Of Malekula.  “I have such pale legs!” he told us.  “I knew they were flashing in the sea like a beacon!”  Fortunately this story has a happy ending; after two hours the yacht came to find them all; the swimmers and the floaters.  They are all very shaken and upset and they are going to try to instate better safety systems on their boat… But Andy said the whole way through, they kept laughing and keeping up morale; I am very impressed.