Sailor rescued from reef with family had survived shipwreck that left 19 dead
A SAILOR rescued with his British family from a shark-infested reef in the south Pacific had previously survived a shipwreck in the Bermuda Triangle.
Bobby Cooper, 51, wife Cheryl, 37, and children Lauren, 13, and Robbie, ten, were on a dream two-year voyage across the globe when they ran aground 200 miles from the nearest inhabited island in the early hours of Monday.
Only by chance was a boat near enough to save them.
As Mr Cooper last night talked about his family’s terrifying ordeal, it emerged that he is a survivor of the 1984 Marques disaster that left 19 drowned.
The 88ft high vessel – which appeared in hit TV drama The Onedin Line – was taking part in the Tall Ships race in the Caribbean when it ran into a storm and ‘nosedived like a submarine’.
Four Britons were among the dead – but an 18-year-old Mr Cooper was one of nine crew to survive.
The Mail reported at the time how he ‘was ducked under heaving seas after the three-masted ship went down in less than 45 seconds, but survived because the air in his oilskin kept him buoyant’. After being taken to Bermuda, the Scot phoned his parents in Stirling to say how lucky he was to survive.
Yesterday Mr Cooper was making another relieved phone call, this time from the South Pacific.
He told how his family’s 50ft catamaran, the Avanti, was thrown by 40mph winds and high seas on to the remote and barely charted Beveridge Reef, 200 miles from the island of Niue.
Mr Cooper said: ‘The reef didn’t appear on our plotter, I’m afraid.
‘It came as a complete surprise. It was fairly interesting. We surfed onto the reef, bit of a navigation error.
‘It was very violent and we grounded. We were then being hit by subsequent waves as they came over us, breaking over our stern. We got the kids up. We put them to the task of collecting whatever things they required and we assessed our situation.’
Although she was taking water, Mr Cooper realised the Avanti was not sinking. However he feared it would be days before help arrived to answer the distress signal – until their call was picked up in New Zealand 1,500 miles to the south, alerting whale research ship, the Dona Catharina, which by chance was sheltering from the high seas a couple of miles away in a lagoon.
Mr Cooper told The Times: ‘If they hadn’t been there, we’d be sitting in a liferaft right now, trying to keep warm and dry.’ The family remain with the Dona Catharina’s seven crew, waiting for the weather to improve so they can sail on to Niue. The Avanti was hauled to the lagoon, where it is now anchored.
Mrs Cooper’s mother Karen Kerr, 60, of Doncaster, said the couple, who met while living in Majorca, had sold their home and taken their children out of school in April to begin their voyage across the globe. A JustGiving fundraising appeal for the family had last night raised more than £19,000.
‘It was very violent and we grounded’