On a 4,000-mile sailing trip from Tahiti to San Diego, Tami Oldham Ashcraft and her fiancé got caught in a category-four hurricane.
YouTubeTami Oldham Ashcraft and Richard Sharp , just before setting out on their fateful slip .
The last thing Tami Oldham Ashcraft think before being knock unconscious was hearing her fiancé shriek .
When she awoke 27 minute later , she was in the cabin of their 44 - foot racing yacht , set in several feet of water , surrounded by debris . Her fiancé was gone and her boat was badly damaged , the final result of an unexpected family - four hurricane .
YouTubeTami Oldham Ashcraft and Richard Sharp, just before setting out on their fateful trip.
For the next 41 sidereal day , Tami Oldham Ashcraft would be alone , adrift in the eye of the Pacific Ocean , fighting to survive .
Three week before the mortal storm , Ashcraft and her fiancé Richard Sharp countersink out on what should have been a workaday trip . Combined , the two had age of sailing experience and spent much of their time cruising around the South Pacific Islands on Sharp ’s 36 - foundation sailboat . The ocean was as much their menage as the land was , and at multiplication , it felt even more so .
In October of 1983 , a friend near the couple and ask if they would fork up a 44 - foot racing yacht , Hazana , from Tahiti to San Diego . Though the trip was over 4,000 miles , and longer than they had ever gone at one sentence , the mates matt-up confident in their ability to do it .
YouTubeTami Oldham Ashcraft after her trip.
At another time , perhaps they could have .
Three weeks into their journeying , disaster hit . Hurricane Raymond , a category - four hurricane , surprised the brace by changing course earlier than they expected . As they were already in the way of the violent storm , the couple attempted to endure it , donning raincoats and embarkation up the yacht . When they did , 40 - fundament waves and 140 - mile - per - time of day winds settle on the tiny watercraft .
Sharp assert that Ashcraft board herself up below deck of cards , while he plug himself in the safety harness . As she closed the door , she hear Sharp shout “ oh my god ! ” before the boat capsized . The military group threw Ashcraft against the paries , knocking her unconscious .
YouTube‘Hazana’ after it was towed into the harbor at Hilo.
YouTubeTami Oldham Ashcraft after her stumble .
When she awoke , she was smother by destruction . The main cabin was filling with water , the mast were break clean off , and the sails were dragging in the water . Despite that , the ship was miraculously still inundated .
discriminating , however , was gone . The safety harness was dangling in the water , but Ashcraft ’s fiancé was nowhere to be found . Ashcraft believe that the force play of the wind was just too strong and that he must have been thrown into the sea and pull beneath the massive swells .
But Tami Oldham Ashcraft did n’t have time to grieve over her presumed - all in fiancé . The racing yacht was sinking , the sails were shoot down , and she had a gash on her brow that was progressively irritating . Upon further investigation , Ashcraft realized that the engine , the piloting organization , and the exigency positioning devices were also in disrepair .
Using a confused pole and a storm jib , Ashcraft forge a jury-rigged canvass and superintend to pump the water out of the cabin . A hunt of the drier cabin revealed a sextant and a watch , the only tool that had survived , and the unity she would use to navigate to the closest land mass — the 1,500 - mile - away island of Hilo , Hawaii .
Though all the odds were against her , Tami Oldham Ashcraftmanaged to do it .
Relying on her sextant , tinned fruit salad and sardines , and the hope that she ’d picked currents that would drift her toward Hawaii , Ashcraft spent 41 days pushing herself to survive . Eventually , a Japanese enquiry ship noticedHazanafloating just outside the haven and pulled her into Hilo .
YouTube‘Hazana ’ after it was towed into the harbour at Hilo .
Though her experience was harrowing , and without a incertitude a traumatic one , Tami Oldham Ashcraft eventually found solace by writing her fib down .
Though she could n’t even read for six years afterward due to her caput hurt , she bring off to put her full account down on paper for her bookRed Sky in Mourning : A True Story of Love , Loss , and Survival at Sea . It was later read into eight languages , published in fifteen countries and has now been made into a picture show , fittingly titledAdrift .
“ decidedly the hardest part was dealing with Richard being last , ” Ashcraft told theChicago Tribunein her first audience about her experience after her Quran was put out . “ There were times I did n’t even want to live any longer because I did n’t know how I was going to go on . I was never going to fall in love again . ”
“ Actually , while I was in the survival musical mode , the heartache was fairly miserable , ” she continued . “ It was n’t as vivid as when I got to shore and the survival of the fittest was over , and I could see hoi polloi together and everything retain prompt me of him . I just really had a operose time . But that survival instinct [ while at ocean ] just kicked in . It helped me to pore , to keep myself on track . ”
Today , Ashcraft lives on San Juan Island off the coast of Washington , where she still sails on a regular basis . Though she still carries the memory of her experience and her fiancé with her every twenty-four hour period , she ’s gotten married , has two children , and is the picture of felicity . The only sign of her trauma is a diminutive sextant pendent , incrust with a ball field , which she get into every day .
“ It reminds me of how I amaze home , ” she tell . “ It saved my life sentence . ”
Next , register about theworst raw disasters of the 21st hundred . Then , check out these five amazingsurvival tale .
