A love that flourished adrift on a fragile raft
It is in extremis that the true nature of a relationship becomes clear. Maurice and Maralyn Bailey are a case in point. In 1973, the couple spent 118 days adrift in the Pacific in a dinghy after their yacht sank.
The story of the couple, as recounted here by Sophie Elmhirst, had mundane beginnings. They met in 1962 in Derby, where Maurice was a printer and Maralyn worked in a tax office. He admired her assertiveness and zest for life, while she was attracted by his apparent worldliness. On an early date Maurice took her to a Chinese restaurant, before going on to the theatre. “Maralyn had never done any of those things before,” notes Elmhirst.
In reality, Maurice was uneasy in social encounters and, if he wasn’t a misanthrope, he wasn’t far off it. Nevertheless, the pair began hiking and sailing together, and soon married. But they couldn’t settle. Maralyn suggested they sold their house, bought a yacht and sailed to New Zealand.
Maurice found the idea irresistible – not least for the escape it offered from social interaction. In the Pacific Ocean a whale smashed a hole in their vessel, which swiftly sank.
Adrift on the yacht’s life raft, there were few distractions. They had managed to salvage two books: a sailing manual and a biography of Richard III. “At dawn, they woke to an empty sky, an empty ocean. Nothing to see except themselves, already obsessed by thirst.”
They had a small quantity of tinned food, a few dates and nuts, and a Dundee cake. When that all ran out they survived on raw fish and turtle meat.
Their perspectives on their plight were very different. “Maurice, being honest, thought they were doomed but didn’t say so,” writes Elmhirst. Maralyn was, by contrast, transcendentally optimistic. In her journal she wrote that their situation had at least one silver lining: “She noted how rare it was for a couple to have such a period of uninterrupted time together.”
After 118 days adrift they were finally picked up by a South Korean fishing vessel. Back on land, the emaciated couple found their lives had changed in a way they could never have anticipated: they were instant celebrities, with newspapers bidding for their stories.
OFF THE SHELF: BOOK REVIEW
Sophie Elmhirst writes features for the Guardian and the Economist. Her retelling of this odd story of true love is her first book. The Baileys wrote their own account of their ordeal, 117 Days Adrift (the number came from incorrect news reports), which was published in 1974. Elmhirst’s version features finer prose and greater psychological depth, as well as extensive additional research including interviews with the Baileys’ surviving friends and relatives.
Maurice lacked self-confidence and suffered from low esteem, she tells us, legacies of a troubled childhood. The source of Maralyn’s boundless positivity, meanwhile, remains unclear but it meant she never lost faith in their rescue. Elmhirst points out, with engaging acuity, that the Baileys’ plight is an extended metaphor for all our relationships. “For what else is a marriage, really,” she asks, “if not being stuck on a small raft with someone and trying to survive?” The couple returned to sea the following year, and were together until Maralyn died in 2002.
This is a quirky, thrilling and moving tale of a love which proved stronger than starvation, dehydration and the mighty waves and storms which threatened that fragile life raft.