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Help! Writing non fiction, do you name the names?

Amusement CHRISTMAS MEDICAL ADVICE

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AgentPete

Capo Famiglia
Guardian
Full Member
May 19, 2014
London UK
We’re well into the crazy season now, there’s a “last flight out of Saigon” atmosphere that creeps into publishing at this time of year. Also, it’s party time.

Was talking last night to a chap who spent a large part of the past six weeks afloat, adrift, becalmed. He was the professional crew in a ketch taking half a dozen tourists on a luxury cruise between the Philippines and Thailand. They got more than they bargained for.

First, the wind dropped completely. No problem, they had an engine. Which didn’t work and couldn’t be repaired. So… no electricity. No GPS. No communications. They drifted for days, away from shipping lanes.

Then the water supply started to run out. The captain – elderly, eccentric – pretty much withdrew. The luxury tourists started stealing & hoarding water, every manjack for himself.

After a week adrift, he took a sextant sighting. They were exactly where they had been a week before, going round in a giant circle. He knew they were going to die.

Then a Thai voice hailed them. A tiny, primitive fishing trimaran had spotted them. Only room to take one passenger off at a time. He flew home to last night’s party.

This is the sort of story that never makes the news, but is brimming with drama. Fascinating, I thought.
 
Good lawwwwwwd.

Wonder how far out the trimaran was? You'd imagine they must have been in sight of land.
 
No, I don't believe they could see land. Apparently trimaran was of ancient construction.
I've never been tempted to do this sort of thing, but if I did, I'd want to check for myself that there were ample spare batteries and some form of water distillation that didn't need electricity...
 
o_OJust no way.

It has taken me many years to sign up for any cruise at all....the ferry has been enough

Porpoise in the Bay of Biscay

But as the ship sailed down the Tyne, annoying the neighbours, blasting out



as we passed the lighthouse in the evening sun... heading out to Stavanger....time to go and invade some Viking folk...

ginormous ship and a doughty tiny Philippino captain....it did feel like an adventure...amid the ever present perils of pirates NOROVIRUS....

I don't suppose the gentleman will be too keen to embark with that captain again any time soon.
 
I once met an Army Chaplain who told me an interesting tale. Apparently he was forced to abandon a yacht in the Irish Sea after it was hit by a submarine's periscope. The culprit was HMS Conqueror which was responsible for sinking the Argentine cruiser, General Belgrano, during the Falklands War.
 
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A guy we knew was captain of an oil tanker. After 9/11, all the satellites were turned off, and no ship moved in the seas. He was the only captain who could -and still did as a matter of course, he never trusted computers- use a sextant and navigated his way across the ocean. His was the only ship that sailed over those hours/days :)
 
o_OJust no way.

It has taken me many years to sign up for any cruise at all....the ferry has been enough

Porpoise in the Bay of Biscay

But as the ship sailed down the Tyne, annoying the neighbours, blasting out



as we passed the lighthouse in the evening sun... heading out to Stavanger....time to go and invade some Viking folk...

ginormous ship and a doughty tiny Philippino captain....it did feel like an adventure...amid the ever present perils of pirates NOROVIRUS....

I don't suppose the gentleman will be too keen to embark with that captain again any time soon.


Getting off in Stavanger would probably be worse... (I used to threaten that I wanted my tombstone to read At Least I'm Not in Stavanger...)
 
I've long-since lost the will to travel but that has now put me off entirely.
I'm just glad he got home safely, but he really should write it up, especially if he has good pictures. That sort of article is perfect Sundays material and suggest he appoach the Mail on Sunday first (they pay most, by quite a long chalk. They love 'worst week of my life' travel scare stories. :D)
 
A nine-foot-long fibreglass boat, the Endemair is on exhibition in The National Maritime Museum in Falmouth, Cornwall. It was the home of the Robertson family for 38 days, after their schooner was struck by a pod of killer whales off the Central America coast.

To survive, they drank turtle blood, had their sores treated with turtle oil and to stay hydrated, the mother, an ex-nurse, administered polluted water enemas!

Shipwrecked for 38 days: the real life family Robertson

m5glw.jpg
 
Getting off in Stavanger would probably be worse... (I used to threaten that I wanted my tombstone to read At Least I'm Not in Stavanger...)

We didn't get off. Went gliding past heading inland. It did look wonderful...if only from the water.
 
Good times!


Like that old joke (and we all know they are the best) and the story from Sandi Toksvig, sailing with John McCarthy round the BI. They had rough seas and first she was scared she was going to die, and then as time went by she was scared she wasn't.

Will those luxury passengers get a refund.... or was it all included in the price? All part of the adventure....
 
A nine-foot-long fibreglass boat, the Endemair is on exhibition in The National Maritime Museum in Falmouth, Cornwall. It was the home of the Robertson family for 38 days, after their schooner was struck by a pod of killer whales off the Central America coast.

Now that is amazing! Especially when you consider that the sea kayak I was paddling off the North Kent coast last Monday is seventeen feet long.
 
No worries. Maybe you can persuade @Rainbird to embrace the virally afflicted, too. Bit like Jesus touching the leper, or raising Lazarus. Or something. Got to be better than Lemsip, anyway.
 
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Help! Writing non fiction, do you name the names?

Amusement CHRISTMAS MEDICAL ADVICE

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