Couple’s raft ordeal

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33279, 17 July 1973, Page 2

Couple’s raft ordeal

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) HONOLULU. Emaciated but ecstatic, Maurice Bailey told how his wife’s courage, and his ability to steel himself to kill other creatures, kept them alive for 117 days in a small rubber raft adrift in the Pacific.

Mr Bailey, aged 41, and his wife, Marilyn, aged 32, were rescued after the eightton sloop Aurelyn was hit and sunk by a whale between Panama and the Galapagos Islands on March 4. The British couple left Southampton on June 30 'ast year bound for New Zealand. Friends of the Baileys in Britain have said that they sold their home in Derby four years ago to buy the £7OOO sloop and then lived aboard it for three years getting it ready for the voyage. After their yacht was sunk the Baileys killed sharks, turtles, and seagulls, played! cards with pages from a| diary, and caught rainwater] to stay alive. “It was thirst that worried! us most,” Mr Bailey said. “We knew we could go for a bit without food, but we were worried about thirst.” Early in their ordeal, there were frequent storms which frightened them and waves that towered over the tiny raft. On June 20 they were rescued by a Korean trawler, the Weolmi-Ho, which arrived in Honolulu on Friday. "I think my wife and I

drew closer because of this experience,” Mr Bailey said. “Her spirit shamed me into trying to stay alive. I think she was fitter than me, and certainly very strong. “She actually knew we were going to be rescued before I did. She heard the ship when it was half a mile away. My first reaction was one of disbelief; I knew we couldn’t have lasted more than another 10 days,” said Mr Bailey.

To stay alive, the Baileys killed sharks. “My wife would pull them out of the water by their tails,” l.e said. “They weren’t very big—about three feet long. “She would pull them on to the raft and I would wrap a cloth around their heads until they suffocated. “We also killed seagulls. They were totally unafraid. They would land on the boat and we would catch them and strangle them,” he said. For the first five or six days the Baileys were able to cook their food on a small gas stove, but later they ate | the food raw.

“I thought at the time that it was wrong to kill a fellow creature,” Mr Bailey said. “But we did it to stay alive; Iwe had to. “We also caught fish, I think about 14 a day. We saw other whales, and were! rather frightened of them.! Sharks did menace us, and we could feel turtles scraping against the bottom of the raft.” During the weeks adrift, I they saw at least seven other! ships, Mr Bailey said. Some! of them came as close as the; vessel which rescued them, but disappeared over the; horizon.