Shipwreck family left high and dry
But pals rally round with $20,000 appeal
Friends of a shipwrecked family have raised more than $20,000 after they lost most of their possessions on a round-the-world voyage.
Robbie Cooper, who was brought up in Cambusbarron and went to the local primary school and Dollar Academy, had been on a epic journey with wife Cheryl and children Lauren and Robbie, when their boat hit a coral reef in the South Pacific, marooning them.
Amazingly, it is the second shipwreck he has lived through after surviving one of yacht racing’s worst tragedies when the Britishregistered Marques sank in under a minute off Bermuda in June 1984, claiming 19 lives.
The Coopers’ vessel Avanti was badly damaged and it was only by chance another boat sheltering nearby was able to rescue them.
Experienced sailor Robbie, whose aunt Lynne Cooper Melville and uncle Kenny still live in the Stirling area, sold their home in Spain last year to travel across the Atlantic and the South Pacific.
But disaster struck last week when they ran aground in heavy seas on the uninhabited Beveridge Reef near the small island nation of Niue, 1500 miles north-east of New Zealand.
Almost immediately friends of the Coopers set up a crowdfunding page in a bid to raise $20,000 for them and within a week the target, equal to £15,422, had been achieved.
Patrick and Anne Whetter said on the page: “I’m sure most of you know that Bobby (Robbie), Cheryl, Lauren and Robbie are now safely in Niue. They are all well and in good spirits.
“Communication is still limited at best but overwhelmed is the only word I’ve had from them about the generosity of everyone in helping them out in their time of need.”
Speaking to a Sunday newspaper, 51-year-old Robbie said: “I had no idea the reef was there. I knew we’d hit something and were taking on water. We were ready to abandon ship.”
Four Britons were among those who died when the Marques went down in June 1984. Robbie, then aged 19, was a crew member on the 117-foot sail training vessel, which was in a tall ship race from Bermuda to Nova Scotia when she went down in a fierce storm.