Battered Cutter Survived Storm

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30558, 29 September 1964, Page 7

Battered Cutter Survived Storm

(New Zealand Press Association)

GISBORNE, September 28. Adrift for eight days in the teeth of 70knot winds and swells which at times were up to 25ft high, the 40ft American cutter, Jinni, reached Gisborne yesterday.

Her crew, 39-year-old Reems Mitchell, skipper, 28-year-old Jim Harrold, electrician, both of Honolulu, and 24-year-old David Guttenpeil, of Tonga, regarded their arrival as “nothing short of a marine miracle.” The Jinni left Tonga on September 9 on the last lap of her voyage from Honolulu to Auckland. She experienced six days of good sailing, was then becalmed for two days, and when 200 miles from Auckland on September 17 was hit by a gale of almost hurricane proportions. Eight days later the vessel was drifting, short of food and water, with the radio and engine broken down. The backstay had carried away and they had to lower the mainsail to save the mast being torn out. Then one of the two jibs was lost, together with the stay-sail leaving only one sail, a jib. Drifting On Friday last there was no sign of land and it looked as if the craft would miss New Zealand and keep drifting towards South America with only a bag of taro for provisions. Exhausted and starving, the three men resorted to prayer. The Jinni was safely moored in Gisborne today

when Mr Mitchell recalled the incident with a rueful smile and a slight trace of embarrassment. “We got down on our knees and prayed. Then we went up top for a few seconds. The clouds split and we could hardly believe our eyes. “We could see the top of a mountain. It was Hikurangi.” Mr Mitchell said that using the last jib, they managed to sail into the lee of East Cape, getting here about 7 p.m. on Friday. “The trawler Sea Harvest came along about 7 a.m. on Saturday. They tossed us some bread, butter and milk, which we ate on the spot, just like three starving savages.”