Will Oxley

surface of the water.

So it didn't work very effectively.

So we put the storm jib up, which is a very small sail that we put up the front of the boat and we managed to continue sailing in the direction that we were going.

So at this point we were now, okay, well, we just, we can sail safely in this direction.

And the storm is forecast to move to the east and so things will slowly improve.

But of course, they didn't improve.

The seas continued to build to a conservative 10 to 12 metres.

And the top two to three metres of those waves were every now and again breaking.

And so you would see them pass in front of and behind you.

And you would go, well, I'm not sure quite how we deal with that if it hits us.

And so...

We continued.

The radio was on full time and there were distress calls going off all around us.

But at that stage, the only thing... It's interesting.

People will often say, well, why didn't more boats go to help others?

But at that stage, the only thing we could do safely was steer in the direction we were steering in.

The concept of trying to even turn around or get that sail up or down was...

was going to be very difficult to achieve.

Well, at 12 o'clock, we checked in with the weather forecast, confirmed that it was supposed to slowly abate, and so we made the decision...

from 12 that we would shut up the boat and we had 10, 10 crew on board.