"When I saw a couple of guys peering over the hull, it was absolute heaven"
AFTER the most dramatic of sea rescues, the British yachtsman Tony Bullimore yesterday attributed his survival in the Southern Ocean to "sheer determination, a little water, a little chocolate", write Geoffrey Lee Martin in Sydney and Will Bennett.
He had hidden in a makeshift hammock inside his upturned boat for four days with water pouring through a smashed window as a storm raged.
For a time, the world had almost given him up for dead. After his rescue yesterday, Bullimore, 56, admitted that he had begun to prepare for death.
He said: "I was starting to look back over my life and was thinking, ΓÇÿWell, I've had a good life, I've done most of the things I had wanted to'."
But at 1am British time yesterday, the Australian frigate HMAS Adelaide reached Bullimore's yacht Global Exide Challenger, which had capsized 1,700 miles south-west of Perth on Sunday.
Bullimore's despair ended when he heard banging on the hull of his yacht and the voice of an Australian navy diver.
To the astonishment and joy of the sailors in the dinghy circling the upturned yacht, Bullimore swam out from the hull and popped up beside them. He said yesterday in the warship's sick bay: "I started shouting ΓÇÿI'm coming'.
"It took a few seconds to get from one end of the boat to the other. Then I took a few deep breaths and I dived out of the boat.
"When I saw the ship there and the plane overhead and a couple of guys peering over the upturned hull, it was heaven, absolute heaven.
"I felt like a new man. I felt like I had been brought to life again."
It was an emotional moment on the Adelaide, which, hours before, had rescued Thierry Dubois, 29, a French yachtsman whose boat had also capsized during the Global Vendee round-the-world race.
Capt Raydon Gates, the frigate's captain, said: "Miracle is probably the word that pops to mind. It was just so thrilling. We were working on hope rather than confidence. When he bobbed up alongside the yacht it was a tremendously exciting feeling throughout the ship.
"He is acting like a schoolboy; he is excited to be on board. He said to the Chief Petty Officer: ΓÇÿIf you didn't have a beard I'd kiss you'."
At Bullimore's home in Bristol, his wife Lalel threw a family party when she heard that he had survived. Mrs Bullimore said: "We opened a bottle of champagne. We danced around the room screaming, hugging and kissing."
The Queen last night sent a message to Bullimore, praising his "extraordinary feat of survival". She also congratulated the Australian services on their "dramatic rescue". Royal sources said the Queen had followed the twists and turns of the rescue mission.
John Major, who is on a tour of India, said: "It is an extraordinary story. It is quite wonderful news. I am delighted about it."
Bullimore, who is expected to arrive in Perth on Monday, lost the end of one finger that became trapped in a hatch and is suffering from dehydration, frostbite and hypothermia.
Before capsizing, the yachtsman had survived a storm in the Southern Ocean and then had four days of blue skies and calm seas.
"I dried out the boat and some clothes and cooked a stinking hot curry," he said. "I had cheese and biscuits and everything was nice."
But he lost his keel when he was struck by another fierce storm last Sunday, with winds of up to 60 knots.
"I was sitting there with my old cup of tea and then bang, the keel popped off," he said. "The moment it banged off, the boat went over so quick. It rolled and rolled and rolled."
He made a hammock from cargo netting that he hitched to the floor of the yacht's sleeping quarters, where the water level was up to his knees at one end and his waist at the other. "There was a hole in the hull, where a window had come out, and it caused a vacuum," he said.
"The hole caused water to be sucked in and out at a colossal rate that caused a kind of Niagara Falls but upside down. I had to find myself a spot as high as possible and put nets around it so that I could crawl in there and lash myself in to get out of the water."
For the next four days, Bullimore stayed in the hammock except for a dozen brief trips outside to look around and to lash a liferaft to the side of the boat.
He had a small quantity of chocolate on which to nibble and some fresh water, which ran out after two days.
"It was sheer determination, a little water, a little chocolate, hanging on in there and believing that something would happen and just fighting," he said.
The Australians launched a rescue mission after the yachts' distress beacons were set off and the race organisers saw on their satellite screens that both boats had stopped moving. HMAS Adelaide left Perth within hours while a Royal Australian Air Force search plane flew over the area where the yachts had capsized.
On Monday, Dubois was spotted clinging to the hull of his upturned vessel and a liferaft was dropped to him. Although the plane found Bullimore's boat 10 miles away, there was no sign of him.
By Tuesday the rescue organisers, who had never before launched a yacht search so far south, admitted that they were unlikely to know whether Bullimore was alive until HMAS Adelaide reached the scene.
The following day, hopes of finding Bullimore alive rose when sonar buoys dropped by an aircraft picked up a tapping sound from inside the Global Exide Challenger.
After rescuing Dubois, the frigate reached the site of Bullimore's yacht and launched a Zodiac inflatable boat in strong winds and a heavy swell.
Rick Burleigh, spokesman for the Australian Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Canberra, said the rescuers reached Bullimore's yacht just in time. He said deteriorating weather conditions could have made the rescue more difficult.
Bullimore, who has sailed 200,000 ocean racing miles and been lost at sea twice before, said waiting to be rescued had changed him. "I've become more human," he said. "I'm a different person. I won't be so rude, not that I was but I'll be much more of a gentleman and, equally, I'll listen to people more.
"I could never thank the Australian Navy, the captain and all his personnel for what they have done, because they genuinely have saved my life, there's no question."
While Bullimore joked that he would get "absolute written permission" from his wife for another such trip, she said that she would not try to stop him.
"He is his own man," she added. "He will do what he wants to do and if he wants to go on, then he goes on."
Survival experts said yesterday that Bullimore survived through his mental determination, the ability to keep thinking clearly and his physical stamina. They said his decision not to emerge from his yacht until he knew there was someone outside to rescue him, proved that he had not been panicked by spending so long in a confined space in darkness.
Dr Mike Tipton, head of environmental medicine at the Institute of Naval Medicine, said: "He must have heard things going on outside as planes flew overhead and dropped things around him.
"Most people would probably have come out at that point to see what was happening and that would have been the end of them because you can't survive long in the sea in those conditions.
"His ability to resist the temptation until he knew there was someone there shows that his ability to think clearly never deserted him despite the appalling conditions."
