Christmas Island Rescue

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            We never thought that we would find a dead body in a lifejacket, but that is what happened at sunset, half a day out of Christmas Island, in the Indian Ocean. My wife, Gail, and I had left Darwin in high spirits on the start of our world circumnavigation. After stopping briefly at Ashmore Reef we then sailed to Christmas Island , where we spent 12 days exploring the lush rainforests and dramatic coast.

Fully rested and eager to explore new lands we set sail from Flying Fish Cove on a starboard tack, intending to jibe once clear of the island. Once out of the cove we decided to wait until sunset to jibe. We were well North of the rhumb line to Cocos Keeling Islands. This decision proved very lucky for five men.

            At sunset, we put a reef in the main, dropped our jib, jibed and headed straight for Direction Is, about two days away. Gail went below to do a position plot and prepare dinner while I stood watch.  I spotted a whale just ahead and called Gail to come and view this wonderful creature, as it passed by on our port side. Gail, worried about more whales ahead, looked forward and saw a red object ahead and to starboard approximately 50 metres away. By the time we crossed to the starboard side it was abeam and about 70 metres away. It looked the same colour as a lifejacket and it looked low in the water. I pressed the Man Over Board button on the GPS, started the motors, grabbed a torch and released the autopilot. Gail took the helm and we came about and motor sailed back to the object. We were about 43nm from Christmas Island.

            By torchlight we confirmed our worst fears, it was a lifejacket with a body in it, face down. We hove to next to the body in 15-20kts of wind and seas of 1.5-2 metres on swell of 3 metres. It was quite dark. After a brief discussion about trying to get the body on board, we decided to contact the authorities and find out if there was a known emergency in the area first. While Gail kept the life jacket in sight, I tried to contact Perth Radio. I was having no luck contacting the authorities when Gail called for me to come on deck as she thought she could hear something. The wind was humming through the rigging, but after about five minutes I heard what might have been a whistle. We switched on all the lights aboard Gone Troppo, grabbed a spotlight and yelled as hard as we could that we could hear 'them'. So, forget about the body in the water, we had to try to find the live person or people.  We thought that maybe another cruising yacht had sunk and that maybe one or two people were alive in the water. The mainsail was lowered and Gail headed us toward the faint whistle blasts, while I hastily grabbed a throw line and went forward with a torch.

            By moving towards the sound of the whistle, we soon found a person in the water.  He was very hard to spot, as there were no light or reflectors on his lifejacket and there were white caps everywhere. When he was about 10 metres away I threw him the line and then pulled him around to the stern where there is a boarding platform. He would not let go of the rope and I could not lift him with it. So I devised a technique wherein I locked my left arm around the Targa bar and while holding the rope in this hand, slid my right hand down, grabbed his wrist, then heaved him onto the landing platform. He would still not release the rope and hold on to the boat, so I had to hold him while I moved back into the cockpit, then pull him in after me. He was not able to stand, so we sat him out of the wind and tried to speak to him. It was soon obvious that he didn't speak English, Indonesian or French. He was in a bad way but we didn't have time to worry about him as more whistle blasts were heard, so we set off towards them.

 After what seemed like ages I spotted a person, again about 10 metres to port, unfortunately I missed him with the rope, and he was swept away, astern. While we were turning around to get him we spotted another person, who caught the line I threw. I lifted this man aboard using the same method as the first. This man was in better condition but we were still unable to communicate. Visions of our recent experience on Ashmore Reef entered our minds, where we had seen 50 people on a small boat towed in by the Navy. We couldn't pick up 50 people!!! Again I heard a faint whistle close by but then it stopped, and I could not see anyone within torch range. The second person rescued joined me with a torch to help look. I was sure I heard a voice, I crossed several times from port to starboard and back before I realized the yelling was coming from below my feet. There was a man clinging to the anchor bridle, between the hulls. I could not lift him aboard from there and he refused to let go of the bridle and grab the throw rope. The second rescued man came and spent several minutes yelling at him to grab the other rope so he could be hauled aboard at the stern. He finally responded and I towed him to the stern and lifted him aboard.

            This man could speak English, so we ascertained that there were 5 men in the water. I deployed a fender on a floating line from the stern, as a result of having the man go past earlier. We continued searching, and then we fouled our starboard prop with some flotsam, so we were down to one motor only. After another age we heard another whistle and found a guy lying on some boards tied together. He was brought aboard but the boards and rope he was on then fouled our port rudder and prop, although not wrapped tight about the prop. No motors, not to worry, we had found our 5 men, one dead and four alive, or so we thought. The man who could speak English kept yelling, "one more still swimming", so I gently tried to tell him that we had found a dead man earlier, and this made five. To this he said" NO, one more still swimming". So, we had to find one more. I pulled up our port kick-up rudder but the obstructions refused to go away. I was preparing to go over the stern to clear the props, when good luck came our way in the form of a large set of waves. This lifted our stern far enough out of the water that the port obstructions were washed away. I lowered the rudder with great relief.

            The search continued, but to no avail. It was decided to stop while I tried the radio again and Gail put into practice her first aid training. After calling Pan-Pan on all distress channels several times I thought I heard a weak response that seemed to be saying that the message was received and being passed to the Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC) in Canberra , but I could not get confirmation so I continued calling. Eventually contact was made with Perth Radio. Oh what a relief, as by now it was 'panic stations' on Gone Troppo. The Perth operator asked me to confirm that I had four survivors on board and that there were more people in the water, also that there was one dead person in the water, and my exact position. When I confirmed all this, I was told to "please standby".

            Gail, who had done all she could for the men, had gone back on deck to keep a look out. Once again she called me on deck as she could hear a voice. We spotted a man being swept past our stern, we yelled at him to catch the trailing rope. One of the rescued men came out and yelled the same thing (I think), because the man in the water started to look around and spotted the rope. Three hours had passed since we first spotted the lifejacket. The radio speaker caught my attention.  It was Perth Radio, asking me to please re-confirm that I had one dead in the water, four alive onboard with more alive in the water. I told him all was correct, except now we had five alive on board. After several repetitions, this new information again got the "please standby" response. As the boat was taking a beating we decided to haul up the main sail with a triple reef and hove to, this made a huge improvement.

            The men were very sick and we thought that at least two of them were going to die before sunrise. They could not take any food or drink without vomiting it up. One was vomiting blood and only stopped when he became unconscious. Two of the men remained unconscious until just before noon the next day. We put them in dry clothing and gave them blankets to keep them warm. The saloon was now a complete mess and had quite an odor.  

            Perth Radio put us in contact with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) on Christmas Is, who then relayed questions and instructions from the RCC.  Asked what they were doing in the water the man replied, "Swimming to Christmas Island". After much questioning of the rescued men we had established that twenty men had set off in the boat from Jakarta , and that it was sinking or had sunk. There were fourteen more people to find. The RCC, AFP and people from Christmas Is responded to this need, but no more survivors were found. The freighter Thor Kirsten arrived four hours later and remained searching for several days, and aircraft flew many hours over the area. A pilot vessel from Christmas Is was launched at midnight and arrived with police and doctors at our position at 6am, but it was agreed to be too dangerous to try and transfer people. So we motored back to Christmas Is, and arrived there that evening. It took 14 hours and was very rough heading into the wind and against the swell and current.

During the trip back to Christmas Is we learnt that the men were from Sri Lanka and had left to escape the fighting.  When their boat had started to sink, eight men had decided to try and swim to Christmas Is, even though most of them couldn't swim. As time went by we noticed that it was slowly dawning on them that they would never have made it by swimming. Several of the men were married and pictures of wives and children were carefully laid out to dry in the saloon.

On arrival friends, Paul and Barbara on the catamaran Queimarla, secured Gone Troppo as we were immediately taken ashore with the rescued men for questioning. The rescued men were transferred to the local hospital. Noel and Tina, a couple whom we had befriended earlier, offered us accommodation until the boat had been cleaned. Noel picked us up from the police station, and after 40 hours of being on the go it was bliss to lie down and close our eyes. 

            The next day was spent at the police station, answering more detailed questions and completing all the necessary paper work. Also a lot of the day was taken up with interviews with various media. The cleanup commenced the following day, with Tina washing cushion covers, blankets and towels for us. The assistance we received from our friends was outstanding. All the authorities were a pleasure to deal with and were very supportive.

We learnt the following lessons from this incident: -

We had thought that it would be easy to get a person back on board with our duckboard, because it is only 500mm above the water, and catamarans are very stable. It turned out to be more difficult than we thought. Not one of the men would let go of the rope to help themselves get aboard.  Everyone must practice MOB procedure.

Voices seemed to carry only about 20 metres, if upwind and only a fraction of that if not.   The last man rescued did not have a whistle, and that was why we had difficulty finding him.  The sound of a whistle will carry over the noise of the wind and motors.  Fit whistles to lifejackets.

 None of the lifejackets had lights or reflective material and hence were invisible over 15 metres, no matter how much the men waved their arms. Reflective gloves might be a good idea.   Fit lights and reflective tape to lifejackets.

All the men we pulled on board survived, but we were very worried about the first and fourth. They were the youngest but had the least body fat. The men had been in the water from between 8 and 11 hours, so never give up.

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