20

General Mayday—An Official Catastrophe

The strong winds and waves were nothing that superb sailors couldn't manage. Southerly busters had prepared them for big seas. But there was no way of preparing for the worst of what this storm would bring: the destructive force of the rogue waves. The kings. The freaks.

Winston Churchill

About 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, December 27, the Winston Churchill was sailing quite well. The winds were strong, around 55 knots, and the waves were sizeable but not particularly frightening. Two crew members were on watch: Richard Winning, the owner and skipper, and John Dean. Winning was an accomplished sailor, and he was comfortable at the helm. True, the weather was rough, but there seemed to be no cause for alarm.

Suddenly, one of the deadly freak waves appeared. Winning never considered himself very good at judging the height of waves, but he saw this one coming. He wasn't sure about the size, but it was higher than the boat's 60-foot mast. The wave was a deadly vertical cliff of green water.

Winning knew what to do. He wanted to get up the mammoth wave and over the top as quickly as possible. They started to climb, but Winston Churchill didn't have the momentum, and without enough speed it was impossible to get over the massive wave. The wave picked up the boat and threw the yacht down on its side.

Winston Churchill didn't roll, but it hit the wave like a brick wall and was knocked down so severely that it suffered serious damage. Winning and Dean were instantly swept over the side. Three windows near the navigation station were smashed, and 6 feet of the boat had been ripped away. The damage above the water was significant, but it wasn't the biggest problem. Winston Churchill was shattered below the waterline as well.

Winning and Dean made it back aboard, and Bruce Gould took over the helm. He asked Stanley to check below and see what was going on. Whatever was happening, it wasn't good. It was obvious they were taking on a lot of water, and the boat was sinking lower and lower in the water. The crew got the two life rafts on deck, and everyone put on life jackets and waited to see what would happen. Gould had a gut feeling they weren't going to be there for long.

As Winning got ready to send a Mayday, he discovered that their long-range HF radio was out of commission, and the main GPS, which would establish their exact position, had been saturated and was also not working. Their portable GPS was not functioning properly either, so Winning had to estimate their position. Believing that they were about 20 miles southeast of Twofold Bay, Winning used their shorter-range VHF radio to transmit the chilling Mayday message that echoed below deck on the AFR Midnight Rambler.

Approximately 5:30 p.m.—about an hour after they had been knocked down—the crew abandoned Winston Churchill. There were two life rafts on deck: an oblong life raft designated Raft A, intended to hold six people, and a circular life raft designated Raft B, designed for four. John Stanley, John Gibson, John Dean, and Michael Bannister climbed into Raft A. They were joined by Bill Psaltis’ friend Jim Lawler. Richard Winning, Bruce Gould, Michael Ryan, and Paul Lumtin climbed into Raft B.

Initially, the two rafts were roped together, but the line quickly broke, separating the two groups. Raft A stayed upright until just after midnight on the 27th, when it was hit by a large wave. The raft flipped upside down, and the five men found themselves standing on the canopy that had previously been the roof. They were surprised to find that the raft was as stable upside down as it was right side up, if not more so. In their inverted position, they weren't thrown around as much by the waves. But there was a problem: They were running out of air in the confined space.

Faced with a critical shortage of oxygen, the survivors decided to cut a small hole in the floor—now the roof—of the raft, hoping that oxygen would enter through the incision. It worked, and they were able to push the top up and down like a bellows, pumping air into the raft. But ten minutes later, there was a large explosion of water. The raft was thrown a considerable distance, spinning the men around inside. They were tossed violently, but at least Raft A was now flipped upright.

A series of large waves slammed into the raft, and each time the men were thrown around inside. The section of the floor that they had cut continued to tear, and the canopy was disintegrating. They clung to the raft for a long time until they were hit by one wave that Gibson described as appearing “without any warning at all, without even a sound, at terrific speed into what became tumbling white water. It was an extraordinary experience. I was traveling at very fast speeds. It was as if I'd cracked the biggest wave of my whole life. And I continued on in this manner. It was just a rushing, tumbling, noise deafening experience.”¹

When the wild ride came to an end, only John Gibson and John Stanley were still clinging to the inflatable tubing of the raft. They could see two figures in the distance, and one—believed to be Jim Lawler—activated a strobe light. What was left of the raft was buffeted by the wind and waves, and Gibson and Stanley clung tightly as the men who had been thrown out of the raft disappeared from view.

Gibson and Stanley held on to the raft throughout the remainder of the night and till dawn on Monday the 28th. Rescue aircraft flew by, and the two men tried frantically to get their attention by waving a yellow life jacket. Finally, at 8 p.m. that night, they heard planes overhead. Gibson flashed his personal strobe light, and Stanley signaled with a handheld flashlight. Between the two of them, they got the attention of the aircraft and were eventually rescued by helicopter.

Like Raft A, Raft B floated upright for a while, then capsized in the heavy seas, ejecting the survivors. But the crew in Raft B attempted to flip the life raft upright again. It was a dangerous operation that required one person to remove his life preserver and swim under the raft. Richard Winning volunteered to undertake the mission. As the skipper of the Winston Churchill, he considered it his duty to take the chance.

Winning swam down to the entrance of the canopy, which was now submerged, got through the opening, and then made his way to the raft's upturned bottom. Using a strap attached to the raft's bottom, he managed to get Raft B right side up. The other three crew members then reentered the raft.

Sometime in the night, Raft B was again flipped by a wave. Once more, Richard Winning took off his life vest, swam outside the overturned raft, and righted it. On each occasion, if Winning had lost his grip, he would have been swept away by the waves, with no life preserver. His chances of survival would have been virtually nonexistent.

No one was sure how it happened, but Life Raft B also developed a slit in its floor. The lower tube of the raft started to leak. With part of the pump missing, the men had no way of inflating the tubing. They eventually found themselves jammed together in a standing position as the floor of the raft took on a V shape. Realizing they had to do something, the men improvised a way to connect the pump to the lower inflatable tube. Then they pumped and bailed until they were able to restore the raft to a semblance of its former shape.

In the afternoon of Monday the 28th—nearly a day after abandoning ship—the survivors in Life Raft B sighted a fixed-wing aircraft. Using flares, they were able to attract the attention of the pilot, and some thirty minutes later they were all rescued by helicopter.

Business Post Naiad

At 5 p.m., faced with an onslaught of emergencies, the Australian Maritime Safety Administration (AMSA) declared a Mayday for the general area southeast of Eden. It was now an official catastrophe.

Twenty minutes after the AMSA declaration, Business Post Naiad was hit by a large wave beam-on, directly from the side. Four crew members were on deck, and Naiad went straight over, rolling 360 degrees in about ten seconds. When the boat came back up, the scene was a familiar one. The mast was broken, the cabin roof was damaged, windows were smashed, and everything below deck was in disarray.

The crew members on deck had been saved by their safety harnesses. Though thoroughly soaked, they managed to climb back on board. Navigator Peter Keats sent a Mayday, and they started the engine. They agreed to set a course for Gabo Island and to take shelter from the storm.

Everyone had survived, but the men who had been washed overboard started to have difficulty moving their limbs. About two hours after the roll, Business Post Naiad requested a rescue helicopter to winch three crew members who were suffering from seasickness and hypothermia.

Four hours later, they were struck again. This time, the boat did not immediately recover. Two crew members were on deck, Robert Matthews and Philip Skeggs. Matthews was trapped in the back of the cockpit but found an air pocket. He was able to breathe long enough to unclip his safety harness from its tether and swim to the surface. Matthews sat on a piece of the rigging—either the boom or the broken mast—for a couple of minutes until Naiad was struck again. Miraculously, the wave righted Naiad and threw Matthews back onto the deck.

Recovering from the ordeal and simultaneously trying to steer Naiad, Matthews saw Skeggs pinned down under a pile of ropes, about 6 feet from his original position. Matthews shouted for help, not realizing that the rest of the crew was trapped below.

The capsized yacht had filled with water, and everything below had become dislodged. The freezer had emptied its contents, and the engine, operational at the time of the capsize, had covered everything with diesel fuel. Debris blocked the hatch leading to the deck.

The crew below tried to kick out the hatch to get on deck. Bruce Guy, the skipper, and crewman Stephen Walker were trying to push out the life rafts onto the deck. Suddenly Guy arched his back, as though there was a severe pain in his chest. His eyes rolled back, and Walker grabbed him. He knew instantly that Guy was having a heart attack. Walker sat down with Guy's head in his lap. Guy was breathing when they sat down, and Walker continued to hold his head, unsure if the skipper was still alive.

The crew below heard Matthews calling out to Skeggs, and they scrambled to help. They were able to get him out from under the heavy ropes, but he was unresponsive. Shayne Hansen and Matthew Sherriff attempted CPR, but he was still unresponsive.

Philip Skeggs was gone. Bruce Guy had died in Walker's arms. The engine and all of the electronics aboard Naiad had failed. The crew had no radio and no means of communicating. Two life rafts were placed over the side of the boat, but a large wave carried them away. The survivors were left in a desperate situation.

The seven remaining crew members of Business Post Naiad were located and rescued by helicopter early on the morning of December 28. Bruce Guy and Philip Skeggs were left on board, and the boat was eventually towed to shore by the police launch Nemesis.

Kristy McAlister and Michelle Blewitt flew over the Naiad later that day. They had been assigned to search the area, which was the focal point of emergency signals. As they flew over the boat they saw a body on the deck.

Unaware that people had already been winched off the boat, the pilot radioed Australian Search and Rescue to inform them of their discovery: “We've come across the Business Post Naiad, there is a person lying on the deck.”

The response was stark: “No, negative, that boat has already had people winched off it. The person on it is dead. Disregard, keep going on your search.”