In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, in an approximate area where in 1820 the accident that inspired Herman Melville to write Moby Dick occurred, four crew members of a sailing ship experienced an atypical situation that almost cost them their lives. The small boat in which they were sailing collided with a giant whale that left them adrift for ten hours in the middle of nowhere.
The survival story of Alana Litz, Rick Rodríguez, Simon Fisher and Bianca Brateanu began with a journey that began thirteen days earlier in the Galapagos Islands and was due to end three weeks later in French Polynesia (3,500 miles). “We had a good wind and we were sailing at six knots,” Rick tells the Washington Post, the newspaper that broke the story last week. “Suddenly the rear half of the ship lifted up and to starboard,” he adds. They had just collided with a giant whale and were thrown from the sailboat called the Raindancer.
The gigantic cetacean destroyed the boat and left them adrift. “Bang!” Rick heard seconds before the boat began to fall apart. Bianca, who was in the kitchen finishing preparing the food, was thrown when the animal collided with the sailboat. She then quickly ran to the deck and came to see the whale’s fin. She believes it was a Bryde’s whale, as long as the ship.
Five seconds later an alarm went off indicating that the bottom of the sailboat was filling with water. At that moment, Rodríguez made an emergency call on the radio and activated the emergency position indicator radio beacon. He in turn turned on a Globalstar SPOT tracker, which transmitted the position of the liferaft every few minutes.
He also gave notice of his dramatic situation to his friend Tommy, who was sailing some 180 miles behind and to whom he perjured that his story was not a joke: “This is not a joke, we hit a whale and the ship sank. Warn as many ships as you can. My battery is running out.”
His most private and heartfelt message was intended for his brother, Roger, who was in Miami. He repeated what he had sent to Joyce and added, “Tell mom it’s going to be okay.”
The sinking of the Raindancer lasted a quarter of an hour. When the mast sank, the crew say it happened “with incredible speed.” The four escaped in a life raft and boat. Despite the fact that the situation was more than pressing, everyone coped well.
Luckily, the distress signal Rick had sent was picked up by officials in Peru, who alerted US Coast Guard District 11 in Alameda, California, which is in charge of US vessels in the Pacific. Their most serious problem was that they had low battery on their media.
The group spent 10 hours adrift before a civilian ship rescued them. According to the Post, “a combination of experience, technology, and luck contributed to a quick rescue that stands apart for the Raindancer from similar catastrophes.”
“There was never really a lot of fear that we were in danger,” said Rodríguez, who also shared her story on social media. “Everything was under control to the extent possible for a sinking ship.” A few words that show that they were not overwhelmed by the situation. They were so calm that they even had time to get the necessary provisions to survive for even several weeks.
The Raindancer “was well equipped with safety equipment and multiple communication devices and had a crew trained to handle this open sea emergency until a rescue ship arrived,” said Douglas Samp, head of the Area Search and Rescue Program. US Coast Guard Pacific
The rescue team members feared how the rescue would work. “The sea was not terrible, but we have never done a search and rescue,” one of those responsible told the American newspaper.
When both boats were close, Rodríguez released a parachute flare and then activated a personal beacon that transmits both GPS and AIS (Automatic Identification System) locations to aid in the approach. To board the rescue ship, the Raindancer crew transferred to the boat with a few essentials, then detached the life raft so it wouldn’t get caught in the boat’s propeller.
“We were about thirty feet away when we started to make out the figures from the others. There was a deathly silence,” Rodríguez said. “They were curious about the kind of emotional state we were in. We were curious about who they were.” Finally, the four of them were safe and everything remained as an anecdote, a spectacular and incredible story of survival.
The International Whaling Commission says that since a worldwide database was created in 2007, there have been some 1,200 reports of whale-ship collisions. Most do not usually cause significant damage.
