Sailing Fiji to New Zealand- Sinking

November 2002 Fiji to New Zealand – Sinking at Sea

Julie and I had talked extensively with our Australian sailor friends that we traveled with about sailing to New Zealand. They all advised us to fly to Australia and take a plane down New Zealand. They said the trip south to New Zealand was very rough and not worth the pain to get there!

The journey would take further south than the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. The further south you go the rougher the wind and seas become.
We finally decided we were going anyway; our boat was strong and we felt confident in our ability to take on the monster seas we would run into. Below is a picture of “Free Radical” at our marina in Fiji as we are preparing to leave.
Our journey would take us 1200 miles over ten days. During that period of time, we experienced four storms and for much of the duration, we saw 30 to 35 knots of wind and 18-foot waves. Over time we became used to the rough conditions and weren’t totally uncomfortable, although most of our clothing and bedding became salt impregnated with the spray.

The wind was so strong that we barely needed to put our sails up. The boat itself was a big enough sail that we could do 6 knots down the large waves with the autopilot steering most of the time.

On day 10 we were feeling pretty elated anticipating the end of our trip the next day. That night I was in the cockpit standing my watch and Julie was down below trying to rest. Suddenly on the Marine radio, Julie heard a Mayday, a boat had been run down by a freighter at 10 o’clock at night in huge seas and cold water and was sinking.

It turned out to be our Swedish friend Alf on his tiny boat named “Mika”.
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Our Story

Sunk off New Zealand

It was Sunday, November 10th, 2002 and we were in our last day of our 1200 mile sail from Fiji to New Zealand. At 10P.M. local time we were in huge seas with 30 to 35 knots of wind and 18 ft waves. Our night had not been fun but it was “doable”. We had been doing this type of crappy weather now for days. We were tired but knew that the end was tomorrow with less than 60 miles to go.

Suddenly we heard a mayday!!! The sailing vessel “Mika” had been hit by a ship and was going down. He just had time to give his position to the coast guard and get into his life raft.

At the time we thought it could be “Mika” a 28′ boat with single-hander Alf aboard (We were right). The coast guard asked for all boats in the area to report their position, and when we did they asked us to proceed to the location of the sinking. We turned the boat around, but it was 16 miles to the site with huge wind and waves on the nose. At 1.5 knots it was going to take us till morning to get there. We radioed the coast guard & they had us “Hove to” while the full-scale rescue was conducted.

Six additional vessels responded to the call and eventually, Alf was picked up by a Russian container ship. He had been in the sub 60F water for almost 3 hours and was about to expire.

We were thanked for our help and released from coast guard control after Alf was aboard the Russian ship. We continued on our way arriving the next afternoon in New Zealand.
When customs and immigration offices came to our boat they treated us like heros. We really hadn’t done much other than try.
Five days later in Opua Marine Alf arrived to stay on a Swedish boat…

he had lost everything and had no insurance. Alf was down below on his boat checking his position when he was hit by the ship. All he saw was a steel wall when he came topside. He quickly realized he was taking on water, and launched his life raft.

He went below to give his position to the coast guard. The water was up to his knees. By the time they responded and conformed his position which was seconds the water was up to his waist. He could not pull the life raft to his boat so he had to jump in and swim for it. He made it to the raft & cut his tether rope just as his boat sunk. He had been terrified that when he jumped in he might loose his glasses making it impossible to see the liferaft in the dark and huge seas.

In the distance, he saw the light of a ship and shot up a flare. He sent up a few more flares without success and decided to light a handheld flare. With all the movement and huge seas, he fell on the canopy of the life raft, the flare falling into the bottom of the raft.

The flare was still burning when he grabbed it with his bare hand sustaining a bad burn, The raft was now leaking with a hole in it and there was as much water inside as outside. He clung on for his life for hours until the Russians arrived. Hypothermia was setting in.

They eventually hoisted him aboard, gave him a hot shower, a vodka rub down, treated his burn, and gave him a couple of shots.

He was lucky to be alive and as of this story the ship that hit him steamed off not responding to calls on VHF or SSB. Officials are investigating and believe they know which ship it was….

Alf came up to Opua to see us and thank us for helping out. 
I had met Alf on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal. He needed some help with his rigging, so I went over to his boat with abottle of red wine.
Turns out he had had a bad devorce. So he bought a small sailboat named it Mica after his daughter and headed off to sail around the world.