Leap in the dark for yachties pulled from ocean
Murray Vereker-Bindon leapt from a burning yacht and put his fate in the Pacific Ocean.
He was in a leaking life raft in the dead of night with two others and had no idea if anyone knew of their plight – and one of the hardest parts was still to come.
Vereker-Bindon, 70, of Hamilton, spoke yesterday morning from aboard the container ship MV Cap Capricorn, which rescued him, Kiwi crewman Michael Boyd, and Mexican skipper Victor Campos early on Wednesday.
Their yacht, Sunny Deck, was about 350 nautical miles from Tonga on Wednesday morning. The two Kiwi sailors were asleep in the aft cabin with the skipper piloting the yacht.
Campos smelt smoke and went to investigate. He opened a cover on the side of the motor.
‘‘He yelled at us ‘get out, get out’ in Spanish.
‘‘We leapt out of bed. Our cabin was filled with smoke. We only just got out – the smoke was suffocating.’’
By the time they got to the deck, metre-high flames were leaping out the cabin window right above where they had just been sleeping.
They released the life raft and, in only the shorts and T-shirts they were wearing, clambered in and cut themselves free, puncturing part of the raft as they made their escape.
With the 15m yacht ablaze and knowing it was carrying explosive LPG and 700 litres of diesel, the men got themselves away.
Four to five metre waves were crashing into the raft, and they estimated the nearest rescue boat – from Tonga – would take more than two days to arrive.
There was no way of knowing whether their emergency locator beacon had been detected.
It had in fact been detected and the Rescue Co-ordination Centre New Zealand was already organising a rescue.
‘‘We didn’t really know if we could make it long enough. You are sitting in water, you are cold, you are starting to sink and you are thinking, how long can you survive with hypothermia?’’
They heard the ‘‘whoompf’’ in the distance as the yacht exploded. But luck was on their side. Tanker MV Cap Capricorn was steaming towards them on its way to Auckland and got the message about the sailors when it was only one hour away from their location.
The glow of the burning yacht helped the ship find the yacht then, in the darkness, the raft nearby. But safety was still a way off. Paddling to the side of the ship was almost impossible but they made it.
‘‘The next most difficult [part] was getting off the life raft onto the rope ladder.’’
From their small raft in 5m waves they defied the odds and managed to climb the rope ladder to safety and dry clothes.
As soon as the last man was on the rope ladder, the rope securing the raft to the ship snapped and the raft disappeared beneath the waves.
‘‘If anyone had gone in the water that was it . . . in the water, in the dark, you would never find a person.’’
The crew on MV Cap Capricorn were ‘‘brilliant’’, Vereker-Bindon said. ‘‘They saved our lives.’’
Despite defying death, VerekerBindon was remarkably composed when he talked of the ordeal – until he talked about the family he thought he would never see again.
He fought back tears to tell how his wife was flying back from Mexico to meet him when he arrives in Auckland early tomorrow, while his daughter was in Auckland and both his sons will travel from Hamilton. ‘‘[It’s] a bit emotional.’’ Likewise, Boyd had family in Auckland.
For their Mexican skipper, Campos, the first task on arrival would be getting a new passport so he could get back to Mexico. ‘‘Victor had a boy born a week ago – he wants to go home and see him.’’
Vereker-Bindon had a new grandson – the first to carry the family name, born to his son Matthew Bindon in Hamilton three weeks ago.
For Vereker-Bindon, an experienced coastal sailor, the ocean trip was a ‘‘bucket list’’ item.
The ordeal had not put him off sailing, though – due to age rather than than the recent experience – he doubted he would be doing any more ocean trips.
Matthew Bindon had been tracking the yacht’s journey from its origin in Mexico.
The yacht had left Acapulco Bay on April 14, Bindon said, with the three men plus a fourth passenger, a crewman from Mexico who left the yacht in Papeete.
Bindon said his father bought the boat in March 2014 and had done extensive work to it, including replacing the sail and half the deck, ‘‘which wasn’t cheap’’.
Its previous owner had plans to circumnavigate the world when he retired, he said, but died before he could embark on the trip.
Bindon said he was up changing his newborn baby on Wednesday morning when he decided to check in with his dad via a satellite phone.
He learned something was wrong when his text message and phone call went unanswered.
He suspected the yacht may have sunk after it hit something.
‘‘A friend of my father’s thought they must have hit a whale or a semi-submerged container – they fall off boats all the time.’’
He said it was a mystery as to why the yacht caught fire. ‘‘Who knows, they’ll never know.’’
A Rescue Co-ordination Centre NZ spokesman said the fact the yachties had a registered beacon meant they could be identified easily, and a flare meant they could be spotted in the water.
‘‘They were well prepared. They had a life raft in good working order.’’ The men’s life raft sits beside the container shipMVCap Capricorn as the trio climb aboard.