THE PAST TWO columns introduced us to Durel Wiley, a retired registered nurse and surfboard craftsman who moved to Port Angeles earlier this year — and to Durel’s amazing story of the 1976 capsizing and sinking of a 42-foot, gaff-rigged, double-ended ketch, Spirit, bound for San Francisco on which he and four others were aboard.
[The first two installments can be read at www.peninsuladailynews.com; type “Sellars” in the box opposite “Search Online Local News” on the home page.]
The sinking left the five adrift in the Pacific aboard two Avon inflatable life rafts.
In last week’s installment, the tether holding the rafts together snapped — and the second raft with three aboard disappeared over a huge ocean swell.
Today’s column concludes Durel’s story, recalled in his journal.
When we left off last week, a signal flare shot into the sky and intended to summon a ship on the horizon malfunctioned. It fell back to the inflatable raft and punctured a hole too big to patch.
When Durel saw the hole in the raft, his immediate thought was that he and Nancy Perry would either be on the ship within 20 minutes or the raft would sink and the two of them would be in the water.
As the raft deflated, he shot off the other signal flare.
This time, the parachute opened, and the flare stayed aloft.
The ship on the horizon appeared to be getting closer, but Durel was unable to determine if it was maintaining its original course.
He lighted one of the hand-held flares and then another.
The ship was still 5 or 6 miles away — and she sounded her horn.
Durel knew they had been spotted.
In about 15 minutes, their rescuers, who were aboard Oriental Financier, an 800-foot container ship, made the first pass by the now-collapsing raft.
Durel looked up and saw that crew members with cameras and binoculars were lining the rails.
The ship made several circles around the raft to slow down. It then lowered a ladder on the starboard side.
Durel and Nancy’s weakened states combined with 4-foot swells made the ladder impossible to climb.
The ship made another pass, and a half-dozen lines were cast down to them from the bow.
Durel was able to snag one and secured it to the raft. More lines were lowered, and he tied one around Nancy’s waist.
Crewman began to pull her up the side of the ship. She was as limp as a rag doll and was slammed into the side of the ship several times before crew members were able to lift her over the rail and place her on the deck.
Once Nancy was aboard the ship, Durel tied another line around his waist, and he was pulled aboard.
Crewmen helped him negotiate the rail. Then he stood on deck on incredibly painful feet, bowed and said: domo arigato (“thank you” in Japanese).
Then he collapsed.
Someone leaned over his prostrate body and said:
“We’re not Japanese; we’re Chinese.”
Several of the ship’s crew carried Durel and Nancy to the ship’s hospital room and helped them into bed.
It was then that Durel told them that they had been adrift for three weeks and that there was another raft with three people aboard.
The Coast Guard was contacted. Throughout much of the day, people were in and out of the room asking questions, then relaying Durel’s responses to the Coast Guard.
After a few hours of rest, Durel wanted to clean up, and he slowly made his way to the head. When he saw his reflection in the mirror for the first time, he did not recognize himself.
The hideous image he was looking at was gaunt, covered with sores and bruises — a frightening sight.
One of the crew gave him some clothes, and he was shocked to find that the size 26 pants hung limply around his waist.
Coast Guard doctors radioed instructions to the ship’s crew on how to care for Durel and Nancy.
For the first day, they could drink only milk. Had they eaten solid food, they could have died from indigestion.
There was no whole milk aboard the ship, although there were cans of the evaporated variety that were used for cooking.
The evaporated milk was mixed half-and-half with water, to which a bit of sugar was added. Each drank a glass every couple of hours.
Durel said that to this day, a glass of milk fixed like that makes him feel like he’s being held in his mother’s arms.
On the second day, they were fed oatmeal. By the fourth day, Durel was eating with the crew.
The hospital room was adjacent to the officers’ galley, and at night when everyone was asleep or on duty, he would sit in the galley and stare at the food in the refrigerator.
It was like watching TV, he recalls, and in the morning, nobody ever said anything about missing provisions.
Oriental Financier was in daily contact with the Coast Guard, and Durel helped out as best he could with information about the other raft and its possible position.
The Coast Guard had initiated a search that included private and commercial vessels as well as aircraft.
Durel was told that it was the largest ocean search since World War II. A 100-square-mile grid had been identified as the probable location of the second raft.
Five days after Durel and Nancy were rescued — and on the 26th day since Spirit had slipped beneath the ocean’s surface — Durel was summoned to the ship’s radio room and told by a Coast Guard officer that the other raft had been located.
Bruce Collins had been found alive.
But Jim Ahola had died on the 19th day, and Camilla Arthur had died the following day.
Both were buried at sea.
When Oriental Financier pulled into Yokohama, Japan, there were more than 100 Japanese, American and international journalists and photographers waiting on the dock.
Durel was to learn later that their ordeal had made worldwide news, and their rescue was on the front page of many major newspapers for more than a week.
Nancy needed to be taken to a hospital on a stretcher and chose not to speak to anyone. The ship’s officers said Durel would need to address the press.
Dressed in clothes given to him by the crew but shoeless because of his still-swollen feet, he met with the media and answered their questions, explaining to reporters that Nancy was still very sick and unable to speak with them.
When she was taken off the ship to a waiting ambulance, the throng of reporters and photographers surrounded her stretcher to take pictures and pepper her with unwanted questions.
In the rush, someone stepped on one of Durel’s swollen feet, and he angrily pushed him away.
Amazed and offended at the gathered media’s collective insensitivity, he refused to answer any more of their questions.
Once at the hospital, Nancy was admitted and would remain there for about four months for medical care and skin grafts. Durel was examined and released.
Maritime law required the insurance company to provide the survivors with transportation to Spirit’s original destination.
After a week in Yokohama, Durel caught a flight to San Francisco, where he was met by the boat’s owner, Ray Jackson.
Durel signed some papers for the insurance company, met with the families of the other people involved and spent time with Collins. He also was interviewed by the Coast Guard.
Durel asked the Coast Guard officer who was in charge of the investigation what he thought had caused Spirit to capsize and sink in the night.
He said — off the record — that it might have been a submarine, according to Durel.
He said the sub’s crew would have been on top secret orders and wouldn’t have revealed its position by reporting the incident.
Durel asked: “A Russian submarine?”
“No. Probably an American submarine.”
Epilogue
I’m told that Nancy Perry lives in Hawaii, where she and her husband raised a family.
Bruce Collins lives in California and is the captain of an ocean-going tug.
In my final conversation with Durel, he said to me:
“You know what the weirdest thing is about that whole experience?”
“No, what?” I asked.
“That any of us lived through it.”
He finished my interview by saying: “I never expected to survive.”
Traffic on the Strait
Throughout Wednesday night and into Thursday morning, a cluster of slow-moving vessels heading west through the Strait of Juan de Fuca generated phone calls and emails from a number of constant water-watchers.
The knot of vessels, with a Coast Guard escort that terminated at Port Angeles, consisted of two oil drilling rigs and support craft that left Seattle on Wednesday morning bound for Alaska’s Arctic waters.
One of the rigs, Kulluk, was being towed by Aiviq, an ice-strengthened, anchor handling vessel.
The other rig was the drill-ship Noble Discoverer, which is a converted log ship.
The tugs Lauren Foss and Gulf Titan were also in the fleet providing escort duty.
After a stop in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, for fuel and supplies, the rigs, which are owned by Shell Oil, will embark on the final leg of their journey to the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, where they will be used to drill exploratory wells.
Boat parades
This Wednesday, the Fourth of July, the Port Angeles Yacht Club will celebrate Independence Day with a pair of decorated boat parades at 1 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Boats will queue up for the parades just outside the entrance to the Port Angeles Boat Haven, proceed north to the shoreline of Ediz Hook, then easterly to the end of the Hook.
The parades will then head in a southerly direction toward Olympic Medical Center, then turn west to cruise along the shoreline past City Pier, returning to the entrance of the Boat Haven.
Members of the general boating community are encouraged to join the processions with patriotically decorated boats in either or both of the parades.
For more information, please phone Steve DeBiddle at 360-477-2406.
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David G. Sellars is a Port Angeles resident and former Navy boatswain’s mate who enjoys boats and strolling the waterfronts.
Items involving boating, port activities and the North Olympic Peninsula waterfronts are always welcome.
Email dgsellars@hotmail.com or phone him at 360-808-3202.
His column, On the Waterfront, appears every Sunday.