Chichester weakened by drug

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32958, 3 July 1972, Page 1

Chichester weakened by drug

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright) LONDON, July 2. Sir Francis Chichester was beaten in the transatlantic single-handed yacht race by a painkilling drug that gave him hallucinations and left him weak and exhausted, but he has saved his fierce pride. As he sailed home to Plymouth today in his crippled yacht Gipsy Moth V, after an Atlantic rescue, the solo voyager, who is 70, said: “The drug put me out altogether.” Missing for eight days, he gave up the gruelling race six days ago: he lay soaked by icy spray, exhausted by fighting his way through stormy seas, only half-con-scious, and ill after injecting himself with the drug that, ironically, was supposed to keep him going.

His radio had been out of action for eight days, since he set sail from Plymouth on June 17 for Newport, Rhode Island. Sir Francis Chichester was given the pain-killer by his doctors to combat the debilitating illness he had suffered for several months before the race. He defied doctors’ orders in a bid to repeat his triumph in the first race, in 1960. But, he says in a report to the ; “Sunday Times,” he experienced bad luck right from the start. “One must not call anything bad luck,” he says, “because mostly that is just a sloppy excuse for things you have done badly yourself. But I almost think I could talk about bad luck on this voyage. “First, the radio failed. I could hear broadcasts saying that people were getting worried because I had not made

’ my scheduled calls, bbt there , was nothing I could do about it. “Next, one of the winches ' broke. Then, I began to feel unwell, and took the pain- ; killing drug. That knocked ; me out.” Sir Francis Chichester re--1 corded in his log on June 24, : soon after injecting himself: “A ghastly night. Awoke ; groaning and calling on i God until 5 a.m. this , morning to help me. Fell i asleep while entering up this ■ log. Feel sick, ill, exhausted. ! Hardly able to stand up, or drag one foot forward after ■ the other. Tried to be sick ■ several times, but have not i eaten anything all day.” i He turned back, reluctantly. The next day he wrote: : “Am just about at the end of ; my tether . . . One of the things that really fnade me ‘ decide to turn back was a pain-killing injection I took ;It certainly killed the

pain all right, but it just put me out physically. The drug also gave me hallucinations. I collapsed in my bunk in the late afternoon, and passed into deep unconsciousness. “When I awoke, I thought it was dawn, and staggered to the cockpit. The sky got darker and darker. At first I thought it was fog, but presently I could see pieces of sun shining through the clouds; only the sun looked a pale, white, moon colour. “In the end, I turned on the ship’s lights. And, finally, I was forced to realise that it was not dawn, but the beginning of night—the same night I had laid down to sleep. I had not slept through the night at all, only for a couple of hours. “This strange hallucination worried me, and made me feel it was wiser to turn back.” But Sir Francis Chichester’s troubles were not over yet. He was determined to sail home alone.

But a French weathership, France 11, which raced to aid him after he had been spotted by patrol aircraft five days ago, 350 miles out in the Atlantic, sheered off eight feet of his mizzen mast, making it impossible for him to handle the yacht in the choppy Atlantic. The French vessel slammed into the yacht on Saturday, while trying to get a launch alongside to help the stricken yachtsman. The Royal Navy frigate Salisbury later landed Sir Francis Chichester’s son, Giles, aged 25, aboard the yacht with an experienced naval yachtsman, Lieutenant-Commander Peter Martin, and a repair crew. The Salisbury reported late last night that Gipsy Moth V was making a healthy five knots under a jury-rigged mizzen mast, and was expected in Plymouth on Tuesday. Sir Francis Chichester slept below.