The yachtsmen (and women) revolution thread

[PHXPhlyer]

A sailor and his dog found after months stranded in the Pacific
“I have not had food, enough food, for a long time,” Tim Shaddock told Australia's 9News.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/sail ... -rcna94588

A stranded sailor and his dog have been rescued in the South Pacific Ocean after months at sea, rescuers told Australian media over the weekend.

The sailor, Tim Shaddock, 51, and Bella, the dog, departed from La Paz, Mexico, three months ago. A month into his journey, a storm struck his white catamaran, wiping out all electronics, according to 9News. He says he and Bella survived three months at sea eating raw fish and drinking rainwater.

They were rescued by a Mexican tuna trawler over the weekend, 9News reported.

“I have been through a very difficult ordeal at sea,” Shaddock told the channel, adding that he had fishing and other survival gear with him.

Australian sailor Tim Shaddock and his dog, Bella, were rescued after spending two months lost in the Pacific Ocean.

“I’m just needing rest and good food because I’ve been alone at sea a long time,” he said, adding, “I have not had food, enough food, for a long time.”

A doctor who treated Shaddock on the trawler told 9News that the sailor had “normal vital signs.”

Shaddock and Bella were spotted last week by a helicopter accompanying a tuna trawler, which was on its way back to Mexico, according to 9News. It was unclear when Shaddock first left Mexico, and where he and Bella were rescued.

The trawler was on its way back to the west coast of Mexico, where Shaddock would receive further care, according to 9News.

Tim Shaddock after we was rescued by a Mexican fishing vessel.

Shaddock said he avoided sunburn by sheltering under his boat’s canopy, eating raw fish and drinking rainwater.

“If you get sunburn, that affects your ability to regulate your body temperature,” said Mike Tipton, a physiology professor at the extreme environment laboratory at the University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom. He added that Shaddock could otherwise sweat up to 1 or 2 liters an hour.

“If you do absolutely nothing and you rest and you stay cool, you can get away with as less as 110 to 220 milliliters of water a day,” he said.

Not only did Shaddock have to look after himself, but also his dog, which Tipton said, helped in the pair's survival.

“He had companionship. Once you’ve got enough food and water, then I think the dog has an advantage,” Tipton said. "Your survival time is as long as you can keep collecting water, getting occasional food and doing things that help you stay positive,” he added.

Finding Shaddock was like a "needle in a haystack" in the enormous Pacific Ocean, Tipton said, especially since the helicopter was not even actively looking for him.

"It was a combination of luck and the right behavior," he added.

PP

[John Hill]

So all his electronics got wiped out, could he not sail without them?

https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/s ... &strip=all

[OneHungLow]

So all his electronics got wiped out, could he not sail without them?

https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/s ... &strip=all

He took the dog along as a navigator but, sadly, it turned that his sextant work was very ruff indeed!

[Alisoncc]

Lots of news reports about him, but none about the dog's well being. What did the dog have to say about the raw fish and rainwater diet?

[Pinky the pilot]

What did the dog have to say about the raw fish and rainwater diet?

Ruff?

No, it`s quite alright M`Lady. I`ll see myself out..

[Dushan]

Rumour has it that he started with 4 dogs.

[OneHungLow]

Rumour has it that he started with 4 dogs.

All great explorers ate their dogs. Look at Nansen and Amundsen!

On a more serious note.

https://antarcticdogs.canterburymuseum. ... /hardships

https://niche-canada.org/2023/01/19/we- ... sens-dogs/

Of course Shackleton's men were forced to contemplate cannibalism at one stage.

https://snr.org.uk/snr-forum/topic/shac ... nnibalism/

[OneHungLow]

Talking of boats and cannibalism



But more seriously...

https://www.historyextra.com/period/vic ... cabin-boy/

[John Hill]

A famous Australian explorer was being interviewed about his journeys in the GAFA. He told how he chopped the tail off his beloved canine companion.

He made dogtail soup which was just enough for him to survive. "What about the dog, did he survive?" asked the interviewer. "Too bliminning right" he said "I gave him the bone."

[John Hill]

Mawson's men were starving and ate their way through the entire dog team but Mertz went crazy and did not survive.

There is a glacier named for Mertz and it is likely he died of vitamin K poisoning from eating dogs' livers.

[OneHungLow]

Mawson's men were starving and ate their way through the entire dog team but Mertz went crazy and did not survive.

There is a glacier named for Mertz and it is likely he died of vitamin K poisoning from eating dogs' livers.

Mertz ate dog liver, and like many who had tried to survive on seal liver, was poisoned by hypervitaminosis (as you say) and subsequently died. To this list of potential toxic liver sources add, sharks, many other types of fish, polar bears humans and other species as well.

[OneHungLow]

A famous Australian explorer was being interviewed about his journeys in the GAFA. He told how he chopped the tail off his beloved canine companion.

He made dogtail soup which was just enough for him to survive. "What about the dog, did he survive?" asked the interviewer. "Too bliminning right" he said "I gave him the bone."

The Aussies were known to have dug holes in the desert, with their hounds in the cold night of clear sky winter. The basis of the name of the band "3 Dog Night". The band which was American, of course...

[OneHungLow]

Rumour has it that he started with 4 dogs.

The heartless Australian barsteward has "rehomed" his faithful hound!

A sailor who survived on raw fish and rainwater while spending three months adrift with his dog in the Pacific Ocean has rehomed his faithful pet after being rescued.

Tim Shaddock, 54, was discovered alive earlier this week on board his catamaran, which had been missing for more than 90 days.

His “amazing” dog Bella had survived alongside him, with Shaddock deciding to leave her in Mexico after a crew member from the rescue boat promised to give her a happy and loving home.

"Bella sort of found me in the middle of Mexico. She’s Mexican," he explained. "She’s the spirit of the middle of the country and she wouldn’t let me go. I tried to find a home for her three times and she just kept following me onto the water. She’s a lot braver than I am, that’s for sure."

In adorable pictures, Bella could be seen waiting patiently on the boat while Shaddock was being drive away to the airport, to be reunited with his family in Sydney.

During his first interview, the Australian man said the last time he saw land was in early May as he sailed out of the Sea of Cortez with the aim of reaching French Polynesia.

Tim Shaddock, 54, was discovered alive earlier this week on board his catamaran, which had been missing for more than 90 days.

His “amazing” dog Bella had survived alongside him, with Shaddock deciding to leave her in Mexico after a crew member from the rescue boat promised to give her a happy and loving home.

His ‘amazing’ dog Bella has been rehomed with a crew member who helped with their rescue

"Bella sort of found me in the middle of Mexico. She’s Mexican," he explained. "She’s the spirit of the middle of the country and she wouldn’t let me go. I tried to find a home for her three times and she just kept following me onto the water. She’s a lot braver than I am, that’s for sure."

In adorable pictures, Bella could be seen waiting patiently on the boat while Shaddock was being drive away to the airport, to be reunited with his family in Sydney.

During his first interview, the Australian man said the last time he saw land was in early May as he sailed out of the Sea of Cortez with the aim of reaching French Polynesia.

The boat however became lost after the electronics were wiped out by a storm, leaving him unable to call for help. He managed to survive by collecting rainwater and eating raw fish before they were spotted by a helicopter and rescued by a tuna fishing boat and taken to the Mexican city of Manzanillo.

In a statement, the fishing fleet Grupomar said they had spotted Mr Shaddock’s boat about 1,200 miles from land

To the captain and fishing company that saved my life, I’m just so grateful. I’m alive and I didn’t really think I’d make it," he added.

- The Independent

I look forward to reading Bella's side of the story in an autobiogruffy!

[John Hill]

This whole story of the 'man, the boat and the dog' has a very fishy smell about it.

[OneHungLow]

This whole story of the 'man, the boat and the dog' has a very fishy smell about it.

A fuller picture of the yachtsman's lack of experience emerges here.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... -rainwater

He was very lucky to have been found by chance by a fishing fleet helicopter.

Timothy Shaddock quit his corporate job and moved to Mexico to pursue his dream of sailing solo across the ocean.

The Australian, 54, bought his 30-foot catamaran two years ago in the Mexican Pacific resort of Puerto Vallarta. He needed a place to live and he liked the isolation.

“Of course, living on a boat and sailing on a boat is two different things and that was more of a challenge,” Shaddock said on Wednesday after stepping on to land for the first time in months.

As his training ground, Shaddock chose the Sea of Cortez, a narrow finger of water between the Baja California peninsula and the Mexican mainland.

“The only preparation that you can really do is take the boat out to sea and test the boat at sea,” Shaddock said. He would take short journeys, noting what was working on the boat and what wasn’t, but was conscious that, in late April, hurricane season was coming.

“It was either now or I could not really wait one more year,” he said.

“Once you hit the Pacific, the wind and the current is behind you, it’s one-way, you cannot come back.”

He sailed out of the Sea of Cortez and into the Pacific under a full moon. He thinks it was early May, though the dates are vague in his memory.

“It was very good sailing on that full moon,” he said. “The boat was moving fast. It was a clear night. The winds were strong. I was amazed how the boat moved and it felt so good to sail under that moon and perfect direction. It was so easy to make the decision. I wanted to keep sailing.”

When he arrived in Mexico at the beginning of the pandemic in June 2020, he initially lived in San Miguel de Allende, a colonial town in central Mexico popular with foreign tourists.

There, he met Bella, a black and brown stray dog, who became his constant companion for the next three years, despite occasional efforts to find her a suitable home on land.

Shaddock and Bella were a few weeks into their journey when a storm changed everything in an instant.

“The current changes direction. So if you’re drifting you’re suddenly drifting in a circle. And the wind, it’s changing all the time,” Shaddock said. “The waves are moving in many directions and it’s hypnotising. You sort of suddenly feel like you’re in a whirlpool.”

He lost his sail, all of his electronics, including navigational equipment, and his ability to cook food.

Days became a battle against fatigue: fixing things on the boat, fishing, capturing rainwater. He was overwhelmed by the fear that the next day he might be too exhausted, too weak.

Shaddock found comfort in meditation, swimming in the ocean and writing in a journal. Keeping Bella fed and content gave him added purpose. The two subsisted on raw fish and rainwater.

Shaddock thought he probably would die at sea until he heard a helicopter on 12 July. Its pilot, Andrés Zamorano, was the first person Shaddock had seen in months. Zamorano had taken off from the tuna boat María Delia in search of schools of the fish.

They were 2,000km from the nearest land.

Zamorano believes the moral obligation Shaddock felt to keep Bella alive helped them both survive.

Aboard the María Delia, Shaddock and Bella were showered with attention and first aid.

Stepping on to land on Tuesday for the first time in months was both incredibly welcome and a bit uncomfortable for someone who had been so alone.

Everyone asked about Bella and then felt deflated when told Shaddock had decided to give her to an animal lover on the crew of the María Delia.

“The Australian embassy really made that decision for me,” Shaddock said later, noting that Australia has very strict quarantine laws.

Shaddock plans to return soon to Australia to see his parents, sister and his daughter. He still loves the sea, but said he was not sure how soon he would again go out of sight of land.

“My daughter, she might come here, get me and bring me home,” he said. “Maybe. She wants to come.”

[OneHungLow]

On a lighter note I suggest that like Steinbeck, Timothy Shaddock should write a book about his experience. He could call it 'A Dog from the Sea of Cortez'.

[Karearea]

^

[John Hill]

If he was north of the equator he should have followed the chem trails to Hawaii!

[EA01]

I look forward to reading Bella's side of the story in an autobiogruffy!

I think dog went back to Mexico...Australia does not accept animals from some countries, and from others you need be a billionaire to afford to import then including 6 months quarantine!

but we have cane toads & fire ants too now....dumb country

[EA01]

Not a yacht, but morning tea on my 'Tinny' ...