Atlantic rower Ciarán Lewis spoke last night about the ordeal which almost cost him his life. Speaking from the tanker that rescued himself and Gearóid Towey after their boat, Digicel Atlantic Challenge, capsized on Sunday, Lewis said his main emotion was relief.
"We were lucky to wake up this morning. We're relieved, very relieved, and very grateful to TK Shipping and the Hispania Spirit ship that picked us up. We're disappointed, obviously, not to finish the race but there are more important things in life."
Lewis said the Atlantic Challenge had little chance when hit by a "freak wave". A damaged rudder had forced Lewis (34) and Towey (28) to put out a drogue, a small parachute hung from the stern and designed to set the boat at a good angle to oncoming waves.
"It's a safety precaution and it was working very well. We were staying 90 degrees to the waves. But this wave didn't come from the normal direction, it came from the side and it must have been enormous because the boat is quite durable, quite buoyant.
"I was in the cabin at the time and I just heard Gearóid saying 'oh God, this is it'. He obviously saw it, he was out rowing. When it hit, the impact just knocked me about the cabin. I heard a cracking sound, it was so strong.
"The boat overturned and filled up with water. I swam out the door of the cabin as quickly as I could but I found myself trapped underneath the boat in a pocket of air.
"I got some air into the lungs then and got out from underneath the boat eventually. Gearóid was there. He said 'oh my God, I thought I'd lost ya' - it's nice to be popular!
"We got up on the boat then and tried to re-right it. But we noticed that around the boat there was a lot of debris. The back of the boat had been ripped off. The impact of the wave was so great that it had actually torn the stern off, with the drogue. It was an extraordinary, freak wave."
They then decided they would not be able to right the boat and opted to get the life raft. Lewis had to swim under the boat to get it.
"I was able to find it quite easily, drag it under the boat and release it. It opened up perfectly. I was able to go back under and get the Epirb (Emergency Position Indicating Radiobeacon) which was packed near where the life raft was.
"We were very, very lucky with the life raft, incidentally. We had moved it into the cabin, as far to the stern of the boat as we could to put more weight there. About half an hour before the wave struck I decided to move it out again because - I don't know why I decided to do it. It saved our lives."
Lewis dived back under the boat again for flares and emergency water and the two stranded oarsmen activated the beacon and waited.
"We then decided the best thing we could do was climb into the life raft. People say you should never leave the boat, but we were just getting washed off the hull and the life raft seemed the best option.
"After we calmed down after the initial shock the mind worked quite clearly. So we climbed into the life raft, the Epirb had been activated. Gearóid was in a pair of shorts, I had nothing on, ready for sleep. So we climbed into survival suits and wrapped foil blankets around us."
They activated a second beacon intermittently to show they were still alive, although this doesn't seem to have been picked up.
"We had something to eat, something to drink, and we had a VHF handheld radio which wasn't working properly, and I sent out a Mayday signal on it but we couldn't hear anyone responding to it. The captain of the Hispania Spirit has told me they did hear it and were responding. But we weren't picking it up.
"We just told each other that we would be all right. The wreckage stayed with us for about an hour, and then it disappeared. We had it attached to the life raft with a rope for a while, but then because of the waves we had to close down the front of the life raft. So we lost the rope and the boat. It would have been ideal to hold onto it because there was a deflector in it which could have been picked up.
"We kept on dozing off and I was conscious of the need to stay awake, in case we fell into hypothermic coma or something like that. Then at around 10 o'clock, I think it was, we heard the engine of something.
"Then the engines were cut, or at least turned down. It was this huge ship. Our life raft is so small, the pair of us can't lie full length on it. We were curled up in the foetal position.
"The first emotion when the ship pulled up was huge relief, but the second was, 'oh my God, this is going to be difficult' - this ship is 270 metres long and 45 feet up from sea level, and the seas were very high anyway, but up towards the ship they are more confused. We kind of circled the ship a couple of times. They had anchored, and they shot us out a line but we couldn't see it in the dark. So then the pilot threw us down a rope and we were able to hang onto this rope until they threw us down a rope ladder."
They managed to climb the rope and were checked out medically and given food. Lewis said they had put a lot of effort into the race - he lost over 10 kilos despite eating 8,000 calories a day - and he was also disappointed for their support team and sponsors."But, as I say, I woke up this morning and boy was I glad to wake up."
