NDK explorer vaart onbemand van USA naar Frankrijk

[Freek]

Mooi verhaal;

my boat took a trip to france

but i wasn't in it. that's pretty crazy eh? many already know the story, but here it is again for those that don't.

i was paddling with two buddies in Oregon Inlet off Cape Hatteras a few years ago. the conditions were extremely 'challenging' .. good, since we were doing some work in preparation for our Newfoundland expedition later in the year. one of our group got into trouble and we went to rescue him. he had tried to roll and missed, and was out of his boat and being carried out of the inlet into the ocean. the wind was about 35 knots, waves were 6-8 feet and building, current out of the inlet was moving at about 5-6 knots.

i got to his boat and was getting him back into it when a huge wave (i judged it to be about 3 feet over my head) hit me from the side. i tried to hang onto his boat while bracing into the wave and ----- pop, my shoulder dislocated. i had used a high brace due to the extreme wave height and probably got my arm too far behind me. i had to come out of my boat since i lost my ability to paddle or brace.

so while he was back in his boat, i was now out of mine, being carried out to sea .. quickly. although he was 'rescued', he couldn't manage the conditions. i told the third member of our party to head for shore and get the coast guard or a fishing boat to come get us and gave her my boat to take in with her since i couldn't hang onto the first guy and my boat at the same time in those conditions and i didn't want us to become separated out there. i shot off three flares and told her i expected that at the current rate of flow, we'd be about three miles out to sea in a north easterly direction. away she went, my boat in tow .. and away the first guy and i went .. out to sea. i tried to keep him calm, talking to him to keep his mind busy and told him he was doing fine and we'd be back to shore in no time. no worries mate.

while paddling to shore with my boat in tow, the third member of our party found it impossible to manage her own boat in the prevailing conditions and made the correct decision to let my boat go adrift. better that she was safe and made it to shore than worry about my boat.

the short version is .. she made it to shore (and it wasn't easy) and contacted the coast guard. meanwhile a fishing boat which was coming back to shore, (he told us the conditions were too rough for him out there) saw the flares and found us. he managed to drag us both aboard and took us in.

the coast guard took me to the hospital, where they sedated me and put my arm back in .. and warmed my body temperature from the 92° it had plummeted to, back to good old 98.6°. funny thing is i was not exhibiting any signs of hypothermia, (doc said so) though i did feel cold and my teeth were chattering.

the saga of my boat. it drifted north on the gulf stream, up to Newfoundland (funny huh?), then across on the Labrador current to Europe and down the coast of France etc. where it was finally spotted by a 60 foot sloop sailing off the coast of the Azores more than a year after i had lost it. they contacted the Bermuda Rescue folks who contacted the Cape Hatteras coast guard (my wallet was still in the day hatch), who contacted my home town police, who came out to my house to see if i was alive or dead.

the folks who found my boat went back home (Germany) and sent me pictures of my boat all encrusted in barnacles. they wrote me a note saying they were glad i was alive, and that drank some wine on my behalf. they asked if i wanted them to ship the boat back. i said no, given its condition, and how expensive it would be ship it.

i bought another NDK Explorer just like the one that toured the Atlantic without me in it. my arm got better and i was fine in just two months. we did go to Newfoundland in July.

note: the boat survived a year of pounding by numerous hurricanes that year and when it was found, although it was pretty beat up, all the hatches were bone dry. how's that for a well made Explorer. took a lickin' and kept on tickin'.

dan