38 days in the ocean: how the family managed to survive after a shipwreck
'15.05.2020'
Source: with the BBC
The Robertsons' story is not only an example of how much a person can endure, but also an object lesson in practical survival techniques. with the BBC.
This family drifted 38 days in the open ocean after their small yacht was turned over and sunk by an killer whale. How did they manage to survive almost without drinking water and food supplies?
On the eve the wind had died down, but the sea was still agitated - quite strong for the little Lucette. The waves were such that they could well overturn this yacht, aboard which the Robertson family decided to travel around the world.
They were 200 km from the Galapagos Islands and headed for the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia. The path should have taken 40 days. Two days have already passed.
When something dark appeared on the horizon among the waves, approaching the yacht, part of the family members slept on the lower deck after a night shift. Morning coffee was brewing on the stove; a typical day at sea began.
What happened in the next few seconds changed their life forever.
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Douglas Robertson was then 18. With his younger brother Sandy, he was on the cockpit when he noticed a triangular orca fin.
“I pulled the rod towards me and saw that I had a huge squid on the hook. Then he said to his brother: it seems there is a big fish somewhere nearby. Because where there are squids, there are whales, ”he recalls.
At that moment, blows followed - three in a row. And the wooden schooner 13 m long literally flew into the air, all the people fell. The sound of a tree breaking was so terrible that it could only be a keel.
“I thought then that we must have been turned 360 degrees,” says Douglas, who is now 65. “Because somehow we ended up on the yacht again, and not in the water - I can think of no other explanation. I remember looking into the hatch and asking, "Dad, how are you there?" And there he already had water up to his ankles. "
One of the killer whales, the largest of the three, had a head wound bleeding. But what made the animals attack the yacht?
Whales sometimes attack boats, but this is very rare. The famous scene from "Moby Dick" is based on the true events of 1820, when a sperm whale rammed and sank the 26-meter whaling ship Essex in the South Pacific.
At first, all 20 members of the team survived, but only eight survived and reached the United States, having managed to endure a difficult journey, during which they had to resort to cannibalism.
Sperm whales fight each other, striking blows with a huge, strong, as a battering weapon, head. Perhaps, in the case of the Essex, the sperm whale was simply mistaken in mistaking the vessel for another sperm whale.
However, it is most likely that the collision was accidental. Whalers usually come to sperm whales deliberately close, then launch boats with whalers - from which they shoot from a harpoon cannon. And random collisions are not unusual.
Killer whales can also fight each other, but they usually hunt in packs, like sharks, attacking large prey from below. The little Lucette might well have looked like a whale from below.
Abandoned "Lucette"
Immediately after the collision, Dougal, the father of Douglas, an experienced sailor, ordered the family to leave the damaged yacht.
He turned on the radio to send an SOS signal. His wife Lin began collecting all available food supplies. “I looked at all this and thought: I’m probably dreaming about this,” Douglas recalls.
The radios took several minutes to warm up. But the Lucette sank earlier.
The family moved to an inflatable liferaft, to which they tied a wooden boat with supplies.
“I thought all the time: this is how I will die. These damn killer whales will eat me, ”says Robertson.
“I touched my legs all the time to make sure they were in place, because I heard that the bite [of a shark or killer whale] is not felt - you just remain without legs. I kept touching them and thought: at least I still have legs. "
When the yacht began to sink, Robin Williams, the young man the family took with them (she offered him a seat on board in return for work), was asleep after the night shift.
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Having hardly recovered and poorly understanding what was going on around him, he got onto the raft. One part of the raft plunged into the water, and then it all fell below the surface of the water. It became impossible to be on it.
Seven people (Douglas, his parents, two twin brothers, a sister and Williams) had no choice but to squeeze into a boat designed for six people.
Hierarchy of Survival Conditions
The Robertsons needed an action plan.
“Survival time without air is measured in minutes, at low temperatures - in hours, without fluid intake - in days and without food - in weeks,” explained Mike Tipton, a physiologist at the University of Portsmouth (England) specializing in survival in extreme conditions. ...
The Robertsons were lucky: they were shipwrecked in the tropics, where the temperature of the water is far from the one that causes people to gasp for breath and gasp.
“All the famous stories of long-term survival have taken place in the tropics,” notes Tipton. "If you are in trouble elsewhere in the world, then you will not be able to write a book about how you were saved later."
So, the first two conditions were met. However, the tropics brought with them a problem. The heat makes you sweat.
“The essence of successful survival is in the balance: fluid, temperature and energy, - said Tipton. “You can minimize your fluid needs by doing everything in the coolest part of the day and avoiding sweating.”
But when water surrounds you from all sides, it is very tempting to plunge to cool. As Tipton warns, this should never be done: your skin will quickly become covered with saline crust, which will absorb moisture and irritate the skin.
However, it is not forbidden to dip your palm into the water - it will even be very effective.
“In hot weather, blood flow is very high,” explains Tipton. - And the palm is a relatively small part of the body surface. When the body's core temperature rises, the body continues to send blood to the hands, and some of the heat can be released through them by cooling them. ”
So, finding themselves in the boat in the power of the open sea, the Robertsons, nevertheless, remained alive and unharmed, and they had time to come to their senses and draw up a plan of salvation.
They decided to head north, closer to the equator, in the so-called equatorial calm strip, where it may be very difficult to sail due to the lack of wind, but it is easier to survive.
The sea in this strip warms up to 35 degrees Celsius. There is almost no wind, the vapor rises vertically, and, cooling at a height, the moisture returns in the form of rain.
The Robertsons decided to row to the center of the Pacific Ocean, stock up on drinking water there and then - back to mainland America, riding one of the currents.
They sailed along the southern equatorial current, which carried them in a westerly direction. But on the way to the equatorial calm strip, they should have met a current in the opposite, eastern direction, which could, according to Robertson’s calculations, deliver them to the American continent in 72 days.
In addition, their route ran through shipping lanes leading from America to Australia and New Zealand, which increased the chances of being picked up.
At 10 in the morning on the sixth day, luck changed them. No further than three miles from them appeared a ship. Dougal launched two hand-held lighting missiles and three parachute disaster rockets into the air (after which only one hand remained).
But the ship didn't even turn towards them. “It was a very sobering moment for each of us,” Douglas recalls. “We realized that our salvation is not a priority for others.”
Sea pantry
In itself, such a long trip in the open ocean is a difficult thing. First, you need food.
“Anyone who has gone on a diet at least once knows that they only want to eat at first, and over time the hunger goes away, especially when you’re not doing anything special,” says Tipton.
In the hierarchy of survival conditions, food is low. Without food, you can stay alive for several weeks. However, if the Robertsons planned to be on the road for 72 days, food had to be taken care of.
Fortunately, there is a lot of food in the Pacific. It’s especially easy to find protein sources. The Robertsons caught flying fish and sea turtles, drying the meat to keep it.
“By the beginning of the third week, our clothes were completely rotten,” Douglas recalls. “So we were practically naked like savages. We used our ingenuity to catch animals with our hands. ”
However, protein is not exactly what our body needs when it is hungry and dehydrated.
“When proteins change their natural properties and are converted into amino acids, your body begins to produce by-products such as ammonia and urea, which must be diluted with a liquid,” explains Tipton. Without enough drinking water, protein-rich fish will eventually poison you.
But in turtles you can find a layer of fat under the shell, which is much more useful to your body in terms of survival. You can eat it at any time.
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Douglas says the family reduced their diet to one piece of meat three times a day and to a sip of water three to four times a day.
Despite being surrounded by the ocean, water scarcity has become a major problem.
All around water
The Robertsons turned out to be far-sighted enough to save 18 pints (10,2 liters) of drinking water in cans. However, for a 72-day trip this was too little.
If you consciously deny yourself water during the day, your body switches to water-saving mode.
Typically, the human body needs about 1,5 liters of fluid per day, but under survival conditions, according to Tipton, this rate can be reduced to 400 ml per day.
In the worst case, it can be reduced to 200 ml, after which the body retains the necessary kidney functions, but disables many other processes, and the blood becomes extremely thick.
The hot weather quickly became the enemy of the Robertsons. “When it's hot, you lose about half a liter of fluid per day through your skin,” says Tipton.
In addition to the meager supply of water in the canisters, the Robertsons had two other sources of moisture - rainwater and condensation.
They made a canopy over the boat, and evaporating sweat and moisture from the breath of family members condensed on its inner surface. Thus, they were able to reuse body fluids.
But what anyone hoping to survive should never do is drink seawater or urine.
“Urine is about 4% more concentrated than regular organic liquid,” explains Tipton. - So you will need a lot of water to dilute it. In a survival environment, this is unacceptable. ”
The Robertsons did get to the equatorial calm strip, but the problem is that there was no rain. They waited three days, but rain clouds appeared on the horizon and disappeared.
The travelers found a way out - they began to drink the blood of sea turtles. According to Douglas' recollections, it tasted quite acceptable and not salty at all.
But a long period without enough water still affected their body. Douglas recalls that during the entire time of this ordeal, he urinated only once, and the urine was as thick and dark as tar.
When the body is deprived of water, strange things happen to it. For example, by accidentally cutting a hand, family members found that the wound was not bleeding.
“Our bodies are good at adapting to extreme conditions to keep our heart, lungs and brain functioning properly,” explains Tipton.
“If you are dehydrated, your body reduces your peripheral blood supply to maintain central blood pressure. Their wounds did not bleed, because there was no blood, which indicates the degree of extreme conditions. "
In the heat, without sending blood to the skin, the body tries to cool itself.
Lin, who had undergone medical training at one time, was concerned about the lack of excretion in family members. To make the body work, she suggested making enemas from the dirty water collected at the bottom of the boat.
This dirty water, a mixture of the blood of turtles, rain and sea water, was still not suitable for drinking. But even in the intestine it was very little absorbed. So this fluid shortage technique didn’t work.
It is claimed that fighters of the British Special Forces SAS are taught to set themselves enemas as part of the survival technique.
Survivalists like Bear Grylls (British traveler, TV presenter and writer are said to be best known for the TV program “Survive at Any Cost.”) Note translator) also resorted to this method.
When I asked Tipton about this, he burst out laughing. “I have no doubt they tried. The victims are ready to try anything. But, to be honest, the effect will be minimal. ”
The Robertsons also tried to drink fish spinal fluid and eat fish eyes. Douglas recalls how the fish eye burst in his mouth and what a brief relief this brought. Fish eyes, by the way, could contain a small amount of essential vitamin C.
On the fourth day in the equatorial calm strip, it finally started to rain.
“We were so thrilled that we drank the remaining water supply,” Douglas says. "All the meat was spoiled from the rain, we ate what we could and threw out the rest." At least the turtles provided a regular supply of meat and blood.
However, after a while the rain also turned into a problem. They had to constantly scoop water out of the boat - they worked in shifts, including at night, they were very tired.
At about 21 days old, they saw the North Star in the sky. According to Douglas, then they realized that they had already traveled 420 miles.
Rescue and acclimatization
July 23, 1972, on the 38th day of the drift, they saw a second ship. Dhugal lit the last rocket and held it until it burned his hand. This time the ship turned toward them.
“Oddly enough, we were first asked if we wanted to be saved,” says Robertson.
The family was picked up by a Japanese trawler. "They threw off the rope, and only then did we realize that we were saved."
The first thing Douglas asked for was coffee. “It was a fantastic idea!” But he couldn't drink it.
“We were in a terrible state. Of course, we didn't know, but our hemoglobin level was very low. We were supposed to get a blood transfusion, but they put us on a diet of coconut water. ”
In recent years, scientists have begun to understand much more about how much damage the human body does under extreme conditions.
Here are just two examples: 12 Thai boys who spent 18 days in a water-flooded cave (2018) and 33 Chilean miners rescued after two months underground (2010). Everyone survived.
“When they surfaced, they had to take a wide range of antibiotics,” Tipton says. “Although they were very hungry, they were not given food. Their digestive system needed to be rebuilt. ”
Top of satisfaction
Robertson was taken to Panama, where representatives of the British Embassy put them in a hotel. It was there that Douglas fully enjoyed the freedom to order in the hotel restaurant what he most wanted.
For starters, he chose three servings of steak with eggs. “I was bloated like a pig,” he recalls.
But just the fact that you can eat whatever you want brought a feeling of great satisfaction.
"Dhugal wrote in his book:" We have reached the pinnacle of contentment that we will never reach again in our lives. " And it's true, it won't happen again, ”Douglas confirmed.
“I remember we went to the market. They sold turtle meat there. We looked at turtle steaks and thought: this is the case with our steaks - they were straight from the bone. "
