An Atlantic rower has spoken of the all-night search he and his crew conducted after one of their number was swept overboard by a freak wave.
Graham Walters, 68, and the other crew members tried to make their way back to where Michael Johnson, 21, had fallen overboard but could not turn their boat around. They triggered an emergency distress beacon, called HM Coastguard by satellite phone and used their life raft as an anchor, but their efforts to find and rescue their young colleague failed. A cargo ship diverted to help and two aircraft joined the search but were also unsuccessful.
Mr Johnson, a British-Zimbabwean, was one of the youngest members of the eight-man crew but had years of experience.
Mr Walters, from Thurmaston in Leicestershire, said that the crew had been on course to break the 32-day record for the 3,000-mile crossing from Gran Canaria to Barbados.
“I was sleeping after finishing my rowing stint an hour and a half earlier, but I was suddenly woken by the call that Mike had gone overboard,” he said.
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“It was just after midnight and it was pitch black. We immediately sent off a distress message calling for airborne help and rescue ships. The nearest ship was 100 nautical miles away. We knew we had to work quickly. There was a gale blowing and there was a large swell.
“The force of the wave had knocked him overboard and his safety line had snapped. He was not wearing a life jacket because you can’t row with them on. We were being blown along by a 40-knot wind.
“I could see the light from his head torch in among the waves. We tried to stop the boat by all means we could.
“We had hoped that Mike would have the strength to swim back to us. We kept up the watch all night, but Mike was gone.”
The accident happened in the early hours of February 15. The surviving crew members called off the crossing and were taken aboard a cargo ship the next day.
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Reporting the incident on the Oceanus Rowing website Simon Chalk, the skipper, said that the wave had snapped Mr Johnson’s safety line and it had proved impossible to turn back.
Mr Johnson had studied at agricultural college in Britain and worked on his family’s farm in Zimbabwe. The vessel was a lightweight eight-man ocean rowing boat built in 2011, which has completed four Atlantic crossings, each in under 40 days.