Left for Dead

Publisher: A & C Black

Publication Date: 2007

Most people around in1979  will know the disastrous outcome in the Fastnet Race of the extraordinary conditions  that developed where the Irish Sea meets the Atlantic.  In a “JFK” moment I remember sitting in sunshine outside Braye harbour listening to the radio and finding it impossible to imagine the mayhem only 150 miles to the west. The real interest is why it has taken so long for the account to be written.  It is a very personal recollection from a young man who was, in the words of the title: “left for dead”.  The narrative description of the terrible hours while the 32 footer, Grimalkin,  was tossed around and out of control constitutes a very large part of the book.  The account is based on a dozen or so pages of notes in longhand by Nick Ward as he recovered in Truro hospital.  The author acknowledges the degree to which his co-writer showed him “how to add without veering off the line”.   While entirely sympathetic to the notion that this was necessary therapy after more than 25 years of not being able to discuss the background, the book would be more satisfying to read were the descriptions of his extreme problems and “discussions” with his dead friend not so extended,  almost repetitive. But was he “left for dead”?  The circumstances were unbelievably confused    One of the two people who died from the crew was the respected skipper, David Sheahan.  His 17 year old son Matthew, now the well known sailing journalist, was also a member of the crew.  He is one of the three other survivors who escaped in the liferaft.  He explains in his account how the majority of the crew had, rightly or wrongly,  already decided that this was the best way out of the difficulties before the boat was knocked down several times.  He reports the trauma of his father floating away as they recovered from one such knockdown.  They were unable to revive the unconscious Nick and his colleague, Gerry,  who lay tangled in the cockpit nor get them safely into the raft.  They went to get help, were soon rescued, and raised the alarm.  By the time a helicopter found the apparently foundering boat, Gerry had died from hypothermia. Some of the sailing dialogue appears to have been produced by a non sailor – the description of how to heave to for example and the odd description of knots in the warps used to trail aft to slow the boat down.  Nevertheless, this is a graphic account with salutary reminders of the dangers that may be faced and some consideration of what might be done to help in extremis.  Above all it is a stirring description of one man’s determination to survive all that nature can throw at him and subsequently deal with the notion that he had been abandoned.  You will have to make up your own mind.  Despite the slight cavil above, I found it difficult to put the book down - BJFS