The Times

12 August 2004

Reporter - Lewis Smith and Stefanie Marsh

A Times columnist and his fellow crewmen were within shouting distance of a world record when storms stole their prize

A TANTALISING six days from breaking the world record for crossing the Atlantic, four British oarsmen had their hopes dashed when a rogue wave split their boat in half.

After 39 days and 1,730 miles at sea, during which the crew had negotiated storms and icebergs, a freak storm 370 miles from Britain cost the men their prize, their boat and nearly their lives.

The crew of Pink Lady — Mark Stubbs, 40, from Poole; Pete Bray, 48, from South Wales; John Wills, 33, from Surrey, and Jonathan Gornall, 48, a journalist for The Times — rowed into the path of a depression caused by Hurricane Alex as it moved over the North Atlantic.

Just before 2.30am yesterday 75mph winds and 45ft waves made short work of the 30ft rowing boat, splitting its hull and nearly trapping its crew in the wreckage. They spent six hours clinging to a liferaft with the storm still raging until they were rescued by a Danish cargo ship. Although none of the four was seriously injured, Wills was being treated for concussion while Gornall recovered from hypothermia.

Falmouth coastguard picked up the signal from the Pink Lady’s emergency beacon, and scrambled an RAF Nimrod plane from Kinloss, which combed the area until it found the liferaft and circled overhead, guiding the rescue ship to the soaked and exhausted rowers.

The rescued sailors paid tribute last night to the skill of the ship’s crew, who altered course and put their own lives at risk to pluck them from the Atlantic. As waves pummelled the Scandinavian Reefer as high as the fourth deck of the ship, Captain Jorgen Jessen carefully manoeuvred the vessel to protect the liferaft from the worst of the wind and waves.

The captain then allowed the 460ft cargo ship to drift towards the liferaft so that it was close enough for crewmen to shoot a rope across the last 60ft.

Once attached to the raft, the rope was pulled in and a rope ladder was lowered down the side of the cargo vessel to allow the rowers to clamber up to safety and a hot mug of coffee.

Gornall said: “We can’t speak highly enough of the captain and his crew. It was the most amazing piece of seamanship. We owe our lives to them. We feel extremely lucky to be here. We lost all our possessions in the wreckage and have just what we are wearing, but just to be alive is great. Everyone is now very keen to get home to see our families.”

Gornall, who writes the Microwave Man column for The Times, added: “I’ll never forget the four smiling Filipino faces grinning at me as I scrambled over the side of the cargo ship on to the deck. Once we were all safe, there was lots of back-slapping and relief.

“We feel very lucky.

We’ve had a fantastic experience. We’ve seen the sea at its most beautiful and we’ve seen it at its most violent. We feel we’ve achieved a lot even though we didn’t get to break the record. The worst thing is we were so close. But that’s life.”

The rowers were offered scrambled eggs and bacon when they were safe on board the ship. Gornall said: “It tasted like heaven on earth. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything so great — and it’s nice after all this time at sea to be able to use a real loo without three other guys watching.”

The Scandinavian Reefer was due to dock at Foynes in southern Ireland early this morning.

The four set off from Newfoundland, Canada, on June 30 hoping to break the 55-day west-to-east record for the 2,100-mile journey that was set in 1896 by two Norwegian fishermen and equalled 17 years ago by the Briton Tom McClean.

The rowers celebrated their rescue by watching the movie A Perfect Storm, the story of fishermen caught up in an intense storm. None of the four men plans to try rowing the Atlantic again.

Messages of goodwill for the rowers can be sent to the team’s website: www.gopinklady.com

DIARY OF AN INCREDIBLE VOYAGE

June 28: The crew set off for Newfoundland, Canada, where they will begin their recordbreaking attempt

June 30: The rowers begin their voyage, leaving St John’s, Newfoundland, in the Pink Lady, a 30ft carbon-fibre boat equipped with GPS and a weather router to help them to avoid storms

July 12: The crew reach their first major landmark, having rowed a quarter of the way. Weather is unusually calm and sunny. They confront a whale

July 24: The four are now half-way there, having endured fierce storms, sub-zero winds and icebergs. They celebrate with breakfast of porridge, apples and rum

July 30: With less than 610 miles to go, the Pink Lady is lifted by 40ft-high freak waves and battered by Force 6-7 winds

August 8: The Pink Lady is smashed in half by a dying hurricane and the crew is rescued by a cargo ship 370 miles off the Isles of Scilly