Survivor tells his story after sailing tragedy off Madagascar

by Robert Themer, Daily Journal/Sail-World Cruising on 23 Feb 2009 Last month Sail-World carried stories (see http://www.sail-world.com/CruisingAus/Two-Missing-from-Capsized-Cat-off-Madagascar/53192!here!same and http://www.sail-world.com/CruisingAus/Anatomy-of-a-rescue/53261!here!same) of the tragic loss of a highly experienced sailor and one of his crew off the coast of Madagascar after their catamaran was pitchpoled and capsized. We also told of the rescue of the third crewman from the rescuers point of view. Now that surviving crewman, Leo Sherman, tells his story to Robert Themer.

The three crewmen on the Quequeg II weren't expecting tropical storms when they sailed away from the island of Mauritius, 540 miles east of Madagascar, on Jan. 16.

Capt. Quen Cultra of Onarga had tried to time the trip to avoid the tropical storm season on the Indian Ocean. He set the course to sail south of the historic concentration area for storms, said shipmate Leo Sherman of Gilman.

Internet weather reports on the 16th 'predicted high winds of 19 mph through Tuesday of the next week,' said Sherman, noting that winds much less than 15 make for poor sailing.

Two days later 'it started kicking up ... and it just got progressively worse and worse,' he said. '... We were in and out of storm cells for a day and a half.'

His final three-hour shift at the helm was in the early afternoon of Jan. 20. 'I think I started in with about 20-foot waves. ... wind extremely hard, horizontal rain. Over the day it ended up in 25, 30, 40 and at the time of the accident, it was in my estimation, 50-foot waves.'

Tropical storm Eric, the first of two to hit in a matter of days, was heading toward Madagascar, 200 miles west.

Cultra took over the helm. A master sailor, Cultra had built this 43-foot catamaran at his farm east of Onarga, had circumnavigated the earth once before on the trimaran Quequeg I, which he also built at Onarga. He had taught sailing courses and celestial navigation at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. In 2003, he and his daughter, Ashley, also a Coast Guard-certified captain, sailed 16,000 miles around South America, making the extremely perilous crossing of Cape Horn, 'the Sailor's Mount. Everest' and one of the most dangerous places to sail on earth. They were nearly swamped by very heavy seas off the Falkland Islands, but Quen's sailing skills and preparation kept the boat from capsizing.

However, 50-foot waves are threatening to much bigger craft than 43-foot catamarans.

Cultra decided to run with the storm, 'with the waves coming from behind us,' Sherman said. Soon, from inside the boat's main cabin, 'I pointed out at a huge wave but he was focused on steering the boat,' he said. '... The waves were huge, monstrous ... 50-footers with whitecaps ... so steep it drove the nose straight down and just turned us over and it spun us almost immediately.'

Sherman, the ship's cook, had bent over to get potatoes out of a bin 'and the next thing I know, I was doing a somersault and, of course I realized, so was the boat.'

Quequeg II was upside down and Cultra had disappeared into the sea.

'Things started happening so fast but when you're standing there, it's like slow motion,' he said.

Immediately, Sherman said, he asked if Joe Strykowski, the third member of the crew, was OK. Joe said he was.

'Water was coming in everywhere. In a matter of minutes it went from our ankles to our chins,' Sherman said.

They set about gathering survival material -- water, food, tools, life vests, the emergency rescue signal device, diving suits that would help preserve their body heat.

They were in the upside-down main salon, between the two hulls. Sherman went to check the air in the outside hulls, now the higher levels of the overturned boat. Joe stayed in the main salon and was quickly up to his chin in water.

Sherman knew they had to get to their quarters in the left hull, where most of their supplies were, but because the boat was upside down, they were disoriented and went to the wrong side and were in the captain's cabin. 'But it was the closest one to get Joe some air real quick,' he said.

They decided to move through the main salon about 15 feet to the other hull, where 'Joe had dive gear ... underwater lights ... different tools, a flare gun and flares ... Joe was very safety conscious. He had a lot of safety stuff,' Sherman said. 'I had nothing -- a room full of souvenirs and clothing ...

Joe had salvaged two pieces of rope, which he tied together. It was long enough to stretch across the 15 feet or so they had to cross.

'I went across and took the rope and tied it off ... yanked it twice. ... He was going to secure it and do a hand-over-hand to pull across ...

'This is a guy that's 73 ... But he'd been in or on the water all his life. ... He had written a dive trainer's manual ... He was a master diver for probably every bit of 50 years ... We dove together, snorkeled many times. He was a very capable diver. ...

'He tied it off, I know he did ... I felt a couple tugs -- that was the signal -- and I waited and waited and I finally decided I was waiting too long. So I went back down (into the salon) and he was gone ...

'People asked me what happened to him and I don't know ... I was feeling him on the line and he disappeared. ... Anyone can speculate. ... He could have been hurt and all of a sudden it kicked in. ... He could have had a heart attack. There are a lot of possibilities, but all I know is I waited and I feel guilty that I waited too long ...

'I regret it every day. It's like slow motion ... burnt into the back of my head, it's so visual and I ask myself every day, why didn't I do something? What could I have done? I don't know. Even at the point when the boat flipped over, what could I have done to try and help Quen? I don't think anything. I've thought it through and through, but I didn't have anything. He was gone.'

Hungry, exhausted, continually battered around from the waves whacking the boat, with Joe's disappearance he also found himself alone and mad.

'From that point on, I was angry. Why am I the only guy left?' he asked. '.... But from that point on, it was all business. I told myself, at that moment, I want to stay alive. I'm not going to just sit and let it kill me. I'm gonna do what I gotta do to stay alive ... I've got food, I've got water. I felt pretty confident I could last a long time.'

He endured nearly 49 hours of physical and mental agony. Pounding waves continued to knock the boat around, leaving him bruised, scraped, exhausted and disoriented. Waves pounded the trapped air in the cabin, causing deafening noise and ear-splitting pressure changes. Loss of body heat at one point left him 'trembling uncontrollably for three or four minutes.' After his rescue, he limped and used crutches for a day or so, but said he was treated royally aboard the Korean freighter that rescued him. He was aboard the Auto Banner for 12 days as it rounded Africa for its next port of call at Angola. The ship is due to arrive in Florida in a few days and he planned to visit the captain and crew there to thank them again.

He also may venture to Florida again later for a reunion with a young Chinese sailor he met in December on Christmas Island. 'He plans to sail up the East Coast,' Sherman said. 'It may sound strange, but I'd go in a minute if he calls.'

That, undoubtedly, is what his friends Quen Cultra and Joe Strykowski would do.