The Robertson Family

Time stranded: 38 days

Distance traveled: less than 300 miles

Terrain types: Sea

Deaths: 0

Situation ended: Spotted by a fishing vessel

Location: Pacific Ocean

This story is a classic story of being lost at sea. It started out with a man named Patriarch Dougal Robertson who was a farmer from Staffordshire who decided to take his family on a cruise of the world.

On January 27 1971, he took his wife and two children and boarded their ship, which was a 43ft wooden schooner named “Lucette”, and sailed out into the ocean.

Even though they didn’t do so much as a test voyage, and were quite under-supplied according to their son in a later interview, everything seemed to be going to plan.

For 17 months the family traveled from coast to coast, visiting many ports to resupply along the way and the family’s dream of seeing the world was in full swing.

Then on June 15th, 1972, the family came across a pod of killer whales near the coast of the Galapagos islands, and they struck the side of the ship, causing a large crack along the wooden vessel and the boat sank within a few minutes. Douglas Robertson, who was 18 at the time recalled in an interview: “There was a huge splashing noise behind me and I turned around and saw three whales”.

“I thought, ‘This is how I’m going to die. I’m going to be eaten alive.’ “

The family managed to free their lifeboat and a small 9ft long dingy they had, along with their food supply which was enough for only 6 days.

The family stretched their supplies by topping up with rain water and even managing to catch a few turtles for some extra meat, though it’s safe to assume they had to eat them raw.

16 days after their boat sank the life-raft gave out, and everyone had to squeeze onto the small 9th dinghy they had. It was so overladen that they had to take turns sitting on the only dry seat, with the others being up to their waists in water.

On the 23rd of July 1972, after 38 days of surviving at sea, they were finally picked up by a Japanese ship that spotted their distress flare.

The family all made it safely back to their home, and shortly before he died in 1991, Dougal Robertson wrote an account of their experience at sea, called “Survive the Savage Sea“.

So what went wrong?

The same thing that it almost always is, not being sufficiently prepared. Dougal, the father of the family had actually served in the merchant navy and had spent a huge amount of time at sea, making it quite odd that he didn’t prepare better for what he knew could happen.

As for the reason they lost their ship, I would personally say it wasn’t their fault as they did just fine for almost a year and a half, but what does seem to be their fault was they got overconfident.

After everything going their way for so long they seemed to get too relaxed, not having enough supplies for an emergency, probably thinking they’d get to the next port in plenty of time, as they had been doing for so long. But if there’s one thing that keeps popping up with survival stories, it is that they often start with one slip, one misplaced footstep, one piece of necessary equipment breaking, or one crack in a boat to turn a trip of a lifetime into the very real possibility that could die very soon.

Granted it was 1971 when they left, so survival gear was much more basic then, but survival kits, long-range radios, and long-term preserved food have been around for much longer. I’m sure a survival kit containing a hook and some line certainly would have been appreciated.