At 18 years old, Mick Doleman miraculously survived when his ship capsized in the freezing Southern Ocean off Tasmania. But as he floated in a life raft with his nine crewmates, his ordeal at sea had only just begun.This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris, the Executive Producer was Nicola Harrison.It covers ship wreck, overcrowding, emergency rescue, team dynamics, ship captain, Tasmania, rough seas, death, the Blythe StarTo binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Mick Dolman has been married to his wife Joni for more than 50 years now, but there was a moment back in 1973, when they first got together, that Joni thought she'd lost him. Mick was the youngest member of the crew of a freighter ship called the Blythe Star that had disappeared from the face of the earth. somewhere off the south coast of Tasmania.
More than a week had passed and Joni had been advised that the crew had been given up for dead and the authorities were calling off the search. But Mick and six other crew members were still alive.
Chapter 2: What happened to Mick Doleman and the Blythe Star?
They'd survived the capsizing of their ship and they'd been afloat for days on the cold and wild waters of the Southern Ocean... But due to institutional ineptitude and indifference, the search for them was badly mismanaged and the men found it impossible to be rescued.
The crew of the Blythe Star witnessed terrifying scenes as they banded together as best they could to survive this extraordinary ordeal. The story is told in a new book put together by Mick and journalist Pia Wersu based on the ABC podcast series. The book is called Back From The Dead. Hello and welcome, Mick. Hello.
You grew up in Doveton in outer Melbourne near Dandenong in a housing commission house in the 1960s. Your dad was a seafaring man before you. What kind of values did your dad instill in you as a young fella?
Yeah, well, he was a seafaring man. In fact, he was a Glaswegian who came to Australia via the Middle East. He was a policeman in Palestine under the British regime in those days and he had a great sympathy for the common folk and he instilled that in me in many respects and my siblings.
Chapter 3: How did Mick and the crew survive after the ship capsized?
But he was a hard case guy, big drinker, and he died at a pretty young age, about 46.
You say you were drawn to the sea... at a young age, what was the appeal of that for you?
It was a bit strange, actually, because we never had much in the way of wages and all that stuff. And he used to invite us down to the ship when he was in port in Yarraville. And I had to endure the haircut. from the cook. Was it a pudding bowl haircut? Absolutely. Was he actually put the bowl on your head? He did, and he did. And I dreaded those days when he'd invite me down for a haircut.
But one good thing came out of it, that he took me on a sea voyage from Melbourne to Portland as a ring bolt, which most people would call it a stowaway, but in maritime vernacular, it's a ring bolt. So I was in there... And I never had so much food in my life. The cooks were always prepared. I'd go up in the mess room. Nobody cared that I was there. And I nearly ate the place empty.
And then I got to Portland and he sent me home via train or whatever the case was at the time. He hoped that that experience would get rid of my interest in going away to sea. It didn't. It actually made me more and more intense on getting away to sea. You thought this is the life, did you? This is the life.
So at 16, you got trained at the Maritime Industry Deckboy School in Newcastle. It's amazing to think there was such an institution, the Maritime Industry Deckboy School. Yeah. And you got a slot on a tanker. This is your first ship that you got on.
Yeah.
What was it like for you to be shown to your birth on this ship? Yeah.
Luxury. Bloody luxury.
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Chapter 4: What were the challenges faced during the rescue efforts?
And there was no privacy. There was no nothing. And once I got out of Dufton and ended up in Newcastle at the deckboy school, a famous institution for deckboys, one thing we learnt living in a pub on our own was The access to the bar on a Sunday was via the lift whale.
And you'd go down the lift whale, the little fellas would open it up and then you'd help yourself to a few grogs and then back to work on Monday.
Life's just getting better and better, isn't it?
It is. The world opened up for me. And then I joined the ship, the Solon, which was a shell tanker, one of the biggest on the coast at the time. And I got a train down to Geelong. The jolly boat came out to pick up. There was a few people to go out to the vessel.
Chapter 5: How did team dynamics affect survival at sea?
And out I went. Went up the gangway. They took me into the mess room. My father used to work on this ship, the Solon, and went over to Singapore to pick it up as a new Australian ship. So when I'm bored, they said, you'd better go and see the boatswain. He's a boss, a foreman, so to speak. So I go in and I introduce myself. And he said, oh, I know your dad, Tommy, yeah.
Now you're going to one of those houses. Yes. He said, well, come and I'll show you your cabin. So he took me downstairs, opened it up. It was the biggest cabin or biggest room that I've ever seen for one person. And the bathroom and shower were all next door in the joining room. And the big porthole where you could look out to sea. I said, oh, this is fantastic.
So he said, well, 5 o'clock up in the master room and you'll get your dinner. So I did. I went up. And the bosun was there. He said, go in the pantry and the cooks will give you your tucker, whatever you want. There's menus up there. So I went in there. I said, oh, g'day, how are you? They said, who are you, son? Where are you from? I said, oh, my name's Mick Dahlman. Oh, I know your dad, Tommy.
Good bloke, good bloke. What do you want? I said, oh, I see there's a steak on the menu. Can I have a steak? I'd never eaten a steak in my life. And he said, of course, of course, want it. How do I want it? On a plate would be a good one. They said, yeah, yeah, do you want it medium? Rare, well done. Rare, well done. I said, I don't know, I've never had a steak, mate.
He said, well, let's start with a rare and then we'll work our way up. So I ate the steak and nearly all the bone. Then I went out to see him again and said, I wouldn't be too greedy if I asked for another steak, would I? He said, no, of course, go for well done on this occasion. Anyway, I had three steaks and I couldn't move. I was so bloated.
So I went and thanked the cooks and one of the folks said, I'll give you one bit of advice, son. if you don't treat the cooks well, if you don't thank them for the food, you'll be eating Weet-Bix for a month. So I went out and thanked them, went down to my cabin and just collapsed on my butt and I thought, this is where I want to be for the rest of my life. Let's see.
At the same time, you had your eye on the local girl named Joni. Yep. Family were a bit sceptical about you. They thought your family were a bit too rough as guts for them. So where did you take Joni on your first date?
We went to Pizza Hut. I had a bit of a debate with her. It was at Pizza Hut.
Now, Pizza Hut in the 70s was a different institution. I have memories of this. Yeah. They had that ad, you know, the pizza goes round and round while you're having a beer. Like, it was a bit more... There was a tablecloth in those days and Dad could have a beer at the table. So that was at the upper end of fast food in those days.
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Chapter 6: What was the state of the Blythe Star before it sank?
But water was the most important thing. And we rationed that water to a teacup. for one day on particular days. And when we had some good rain and we were able to capture some more water, we would utilise it very carefully.
And one night, in the night, you spotted the lights of a ship that turned out to be a Japanese fishing trawler in the water.
Well, I never got to see the lights, but Ken had his head through the canopy standing up and he saw a fleet. There was a mothership and then there's a couple of smaller ships that feed into the mothership and probably get supplies for themselves and then they go off and do fishing and then they rendezvous somewhere else. All illegal.
Yeah, they're a long way from home in the Southern Ocean. They're on the end of the planet, really. Yeah, they were poaching fish out there. So was Ken able to signal this ship and be seen?
Well, he said, I don't want to send off a rocket flare just yet. I'm mindful that they might nick off if they see that there's activity out there, us. Anyway, so he kept just biding his time and he said, I'm going to go now. He got the parachute flare. It was a dud. It didn't work. Then he got another one and we only had a few. We didn't have enough to waste them.
He got one up and it was a big red glow across the horizon. You could not miss it. You could not miss it. You'd have to be somewhere on the other side of Tasmania. And all their lights went out. All the deck lights were turned off. All the navigation lights were turned off. And it disappeared. The ship disappeared. They thought we were their authorities and off they went.
On the morning of day seven, there was the first death. This was John who had the thyroid condition.
Yeah.
He was sleeping next to me and I've been talking to him for a considerable period of time over the days. He was sitting, he was next to me the whole time and I slowly watched him pass away. We all knew that death was imminent and I said to Ken, he's not breathing, he's not making any noise, not making anything. I'm not too sure how he's travelling.
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Chapter 7: What went wrong with the ship's cargo management?
And we couldn't stand up. Our legs were like rubber. So we had to crawl to get onto the land. We were just so pleased that we were out of the raft and not relying on our seafaring skills to get ourselves out. But we very quickly came to the conclusion that we're out of the fat and into the fire. I forget who said it, but the view from one of the crew was that we're never going to get out of here.
We might have to get back in that raft. What did you think about that? I said, no way in the world. I'm not getting in that raft. So what did you do about that? I cut the raft. I cut one of the wings out of the raft to make a lap-lap to keep myself warm.
So you're in this remote, wild inlet that's barricaded with rocky cliffs and dense, dense forestry.
Yeah.
And then two more of your men died. Yeah. Part of this kind of collective delirium that was sort of going on, including Ken Jones, the guy who'd got you through all of that. When I was reading this part, Mick, I was thinking, oh, I must have felt like you were living under some cruel star at some point. The fates have been so terribly cruel.
it would have been so easy to give in and just lie down and wait to die like those two fellas did. What kept you going? What thought was it that kept you wanting to live and find a way out of this impossible place?
I think I have to put a bit of it down to my age.
What you didn't know well enough to give up, in other words, in a way.
You know, I played football. I was a pretty tough guy. I just don't give in, and that doesn't mean that others do, but it wouldn't take much for a... If you're so exhausted just to lay down thinking you're only going to have a snooze and it ends up you're dead.
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