Conference unifix::sailing

409.0. "High seas rescue -- and tragedy" by TLE::SAVAGE (Neil, @Spit Brook) Sat Sep 27 1986 09:31

Associated Press Sat 27-SEP-1986 01:10                      Yachtsman Rescued

                Yachtsman Rescued After 10 Days in a Life raft
    
    LONDON (AP) - A Briton whose wife drowned 10 days ago when their yacht
    capsized in the Atlantic during a honeymoon voyage has been rescued by
    a Spanish fishing vessel, a news report said Friday. Press Assocation,
    Britain's domestic news agency, said Ron Hughes, 44, was rescued from a
    liferaft by the Spanish boat Thursday night. 
    
    Hughes and his wife Helene, a French-Canadian lawyer, were married July
    4 in Findhorn, Scotland, and were on a 15-month voyage to Australia in
    a catamaran when it capsized in rough seas off the western French
    coast. 
    
    "Although it was a miracle that I was picked up where I was, many miles
    from any shipping lanes, nothing can replace the tragedy of losing my
    wife," Hughes told Press Association in a telephone call from a
    seamen's hostel in the Spanish town of Vigo where he was recovering. 
    
    PA quoted Hughes as saying he had no food and only 1 1/2 quarts of
    drinking water on the liferaft that capsized repeatedly in the rough
    seas. Hughes said in the interview that he sent up distress flares, but
    "ships that were nearby did not see them. I would have thought that
    several ships that did pass could have seen them, but they didn't."