Sailor survives seven-hour ocean swim
AGUA DILLA , PUERTO RICO• David Thompson felt the smack of a wave and found himself hanging by a tether off the back of his sailboat in the Atlantic Ocean, the northern coast of Puerto Rico off in the distance.
No problem, Thompson thought. He was still tied to his boat, wearing his lifejacket. All he had to do was hoist himself back onto his boat.
But conditions were rough: 20- knot winds and three- metre swells. As he climbed back on board, another wave tossed him off. Then t he surging water stripped away his life-jacket, which had linked him to the boat, and he watched as the boat moved farther away by the second.
“My arms were so tired, I couldn’t grab ahold of anything anymore,” the 68-yearold said Wednesday from a hospital in Puerto Rico. “So I was watching my boat sail away. I was thinking that was it.” Yet he kept himself going. He swam and floated on his back and swam — on and on for seven hours, finally crawling onto a Puerto Rico beach after dark, half naked and exhausted.
Thompson, a retired engineer f rom Kalamazoo, Mich., who was sailing solo when he went overboard, is being treated for dehydration and expects to be hospitalized for at least four days.
Thompson said he had been with his wife, Donna, in St. Maarten. She flew home and he was taking their 16- metre boat, the Enthalpy II, to South Florida. It was about 1 p.m. Sunday when he was knocked overboard.
He recalled that the wave that took his life- jacket also stripped off his clothes except for his shirt, leaving him almost naked as he floated in the water and considered his options.
Thompson made his way toward land, about 6.4 kilometres away. He alternated between floating and swimming, thinking about his 2½-year-old granddaughter.
“I wanted to see her and hug her again. And I have a wife and a nice life. I didn’t want to die.”
A sharp reef cut into his legs as he scrambled onto land. Aware that he was naked, Thompson took off his shirt, stepped into the arm holes to fashioned makeshift shorts before looking for help. He knocked on the door of several homes and called out for help, but none came.
Finally, he arrived at a seaside hotel in the north coastal town of Isabela. Staff fed and clothed him,
His wife said she was not surprised her husband survived. “He is stubborn. He is determined. He is like one of the strongest people I’ve ever known.”