Douglas Robertson

So we'll sail through the doldrums, collect water, and sail east until we hit the American coast.

So suddenly we had a plan.

We hung everything on that plan.

This plan had to work.

And so we're in business in lots of ways.

By the end of the second day when we'd finally made this resolution, we had a plan and we felt much better about that.

My mum summed it up.

She said, Dougal, we would rather die trying than sit here and wait for death to come.

So we made these huge decisions that, you know, a family shouldn't have to make.

And, you know, we got down to the business of survival.

It was hard work.

It was bloody hard work, non-stop.

The raft was leaking, it leaked air, it leaked water.

They were bailing, we were bailing all the time.

blowing the raft up by mouth because it kept deflating, non-stop, non-stop bailing, non-stop blowing.

And we were looking for a rescue ship that was not to be found, you know, scanning the horizon and gradually coming to terms with what had happened and what we had to do to get home.

Yeah.

I mean, I felt that every minute of every day.

Yeah.

You know, this was a fight against the odds.