Hopelessly doomed, but the little ship was in no hurry

I've sailed round the world in a homemade sailing boat so skinny that surely no fellow in his right mind would try to cross the Channel in her. Yet she took me through the Atlantics, across the Indian and Pacific Oceans, through the Southern Ocean, and ... well, quite a few thousand sea miles more.

However, on the night of the shipwreck, which I began telling about yesterday, sliding into a craft specifically designed to save life, I felt very, very unsafe.

The yacht that a girl shipmate and I were sailing from Rio towards the Cape ran into a container, presumably a container, around midnight. The damage must have been extensive because the yacht filled with water very quickly.

The advice for emergencies like this is not to abandon ship until the deck is level with the entrance to the liferaft. That's how it was when we left the awash Baltic Wind.

Bound for Davy Jones

We paddled a few feet away, then a little distance. I've not lost a vessel before. However, she was full of water. It seemed logical that she would go to Davy Jones immediately.

She didn't. We sat in the raft looking at the desperate sight, hoping that another yacht we believed to be nearby would sail over the horizon at any moment. Only waves and clouds dominated the distance.

After a few hours, Nature demanded attention. The liferaft resembled a paddling pool, a very small paddling pool, with a canopy. How on earth, on water, were we to follow the demands of nature?

In the story I am writing of the loss of the beautiful yacht, Drifting to Hell, I tell how we managed it. However, that was later in the drama. At this present time, we expected to be rescued within hours.

Baltic Wind still floated. Well, why not return to her? She seemed stable enough. My shipmate could follow Nature's demands with some semblance of privacy.

We returned to the ship, clambered onto the awash deck. She went to the other side, out of sight.

Continues on the blogs for my sailing adventure story, Sailing to Purgatory, at SailingToPurgatory.com