Shipwreck off Australia: Dragged Towards the Rocks

A merchant vessel departs Tasmania. The scheduled journey time is two days. But 18-year-old Mick Doleman and his crewmates will end up at sea for far longer than that. When their ship goes under, the seamen will find themselves stranded in a vulnerable life raft. The hellish experience will involve near starvation, brutal weather, physical turmoil and tragedy, as it becomes apparent that survival won’t be possible for everyone on board… A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins. Written by Lewis Georgeson | Produced by Ed Baranski | Assistant Producer: Luke Lonergan | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design by Jacob Booth, Matt Peaty | Assembly edit by Rob Plummer | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Ralph Tittley. For more on this story, read Back From the Dead by Piia Wirsu with Mick Doleman. For ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions If you have an amazing survival story of your own that you’d like to put forward for the show, let us know. Drop us an email at [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:31Speaker 01

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• 1:03John Hopkins?

  It's October the 19th, 1973. The dead of night.

• 1:09John Hopkins?

  In the Southern Ocean, several kilometers off the south coast of Tasmania, a circular shape rises and falls atop the churning waves.

• 1:19John Hopkins?

  The small, undulating object offers a solitary splash of color in an otherwise pitch-black tableau of freezing cold water.

• 1:29John Hopkins?

  It's a bright orange life raft, being lifted and lowered, tossed and turned, tested by the ferocious winds that whip up around this southerly belt of the earth.

• 1:41John Hopkins?

  Inside the luminous inflatable is 18-year-old Mick Doleman.

• 1:47John Hopkins?

  Bruised, starving, cold, Mick leans out of the life raft, frantically paddling against the wind and the waves. He is using what little strength he has left, because after more than a week at sea, he's finally seen something that offers hope. Land.

• 2:07John Hopkins?

  An enormous, jagged, barren cliff face looms ahead.

• 2:12John Hopkins?

  Squinting through the darkness, Mick's spirits rise.

• 2:16Speaker 03

  We seen, or we thought we seen, a road along the side of the cliff that we're heading towards. So, collective wisdom was, well, let's get over and have a look and then we can determine what our next action is.

• 2:30John Hopkins?

  Behind him, eight other men, in various states of exhaustion, take cover under the inflatable's battered canopy.

• 2:38John Hopkins?

  One of them, another Mick, able seaman Mick Power, joins his eighteen-year-old crewmate in desperately trying to steer the raft towards Terra Firma.

• 2:48John Hopkins?

  Lactic acid courses through the men's muscles, but still they paddle, battling against the open ocean. Spray lash and panting, they crawl closer to the cliff. But as they do, a sickening reality hits.

• 3:04Speaker 03

  When we got close enough, we realized it wasn't a road, it was just a part of the cliff face. And there's no way there's a car or anything going up and down that.

• 3:14John Hopkins?

  And now there's an even bigger problem. Not only does the cliff face offer no signs of life, and therefore, no chance of rescue, but their efforts have dragged the raft too close to the rocks.

• 3:26John Hopkins?

  They need to turn back.

• 3:29John Hopkins?

  But as Mick and his crewmates attempt to paddle away, the waves fight against them. The current is too strong, and they're heading straight into a minefield of deadly, semi-submerged boulders.

• 3:40John Hopkins?

  Suddenly, one of the men spots something else sticking out of the ocean. Something briefly caught in the moonlight, shimmering on the surface. Seaweed.

• 3:51John Hopkins?

  Slimy, green tentacles dangle invitingly. The men scramble, leaning out of the raft, each trying to grab a handful. Mick summons a final reserve of energy and launches himself towards this lifeline.

• 4:06John Hopkins?

  He manages to secure a palm full of kelp in his clenched fist.

• 4:10Speaker 03

  We spent the night hanging on to a kelp to anchor us as best we can. And if we'd lose it, then have to go and pull up some more kelp.

• 4:19John Hopkins?

  Knuckles white, arms trembling, Mick and his pals grip the seaweed. It's all that's stopping a catastrophic collision with the nearby rocks.

• 4:29John Hopkins?

  But as the night swallows them and the ocean roars, how long can they hold on?

• 4:40John Hopkins?

  Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes? If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice?

• 4:49John Hopkins?

  Welcome to Real Survival Stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. People suddenly forced to fight for their lives.

• 5:04John Hopkins?

  In this episode, we meet Mick Doleman, a seafarer from Melbourne, Australia. In October 1973, Mick boards the Blythe Star, a merchant vessel docked in Tasmania. A 10-man crew are due to sail from the port of Hobart to the northwest of the island. The journey is scheduled to take two days. But Mick will end up at sea for far longer than that, as he and his crewmates find themselves stranded in a vulnerable life raft in the middle of the Southern Ocean.

• 5:35Speaker 03

  This raft was really, it was in terrible state. We were toast, really not much longer left than any of us.

• 5:46John Hopkins?

  The hellish experience will involve near starvation, brutal weather, physical turmoil, and tragedy, as it becomes apparent that survival won't be possible for everyone on board.

• 5:57Speaker 03

  If we can sail alive and keep working on them finding us, searching for us, we should be right. Little did we know, that wasn't going to be the case at all.

• 6:07John Hopkins?

  I'm John Hopkins. From the Noiser Podcast Network, this is Real Survival Stories.

• 6:39John Hopkins?

  It's October the 11th, 1973. A beautiful spring afternoon in Tasmania.

• 6:46John Hopkins?

  Hobart Harbour lies on the southeast coast of Australia's island state. The picturesque peak of Mount Wellington looms on the horizon, overlooking the busy, bustling port, full of fishing vessels, cargo freighters, and private boats.

• 7:03John Hopkins?

  Floating in the calm waters of the bay, the merchant vessel Blythe Star waits in the dock, ready to welcome her ten-man crew.

• 7:13John Hopkins?

  Forty-four metres in length, the Blythe Star is small compared to some of the other ships here. A coastal trailer, she's been transporting freight around Australia's southern islands for more than a decade. She's used to these waters. And at around 6:30 this evening, she will leave Hobart, bound for King Island, a small farming community to the northwest of Tasmania.

• 7:38John Hopkins?

  One of the crew members, eighteen-year-old Mick Doleman, stands on the dock, getting his first glimpse of the boat that will be his home for the next few days.

• 7:48John Hopkins?

  The Blythe Star is a scrawny jumble of ropes, rigging, and cargo. In short, it isn't the most inviting of sights. Mick frowns and sighs.

• 8:00John Hopkins?

  Hobart is a busy port. Those who work here, wharfies, mingle with sailors who are either preparing to ship out or returning from stretches at sea.

• 8:11John Hopkins?

  Laughter, singing, shouting, and swearing echo around a heaving harbour. It's a hubbub of swapped stories, jokey conversation, and constant Mickey-taking. Mick has always enjoyed the banter, so he thinks nothing of it when a passing dock worker sidles up to him and makes a snarky comment about his ship.

• 8:31Speaker 03

  He put a bit of a joke over, he said, "Hey mate, where's your plemsel line?"

• 8:36John Hopkins?

  A ship's plimsoll line shows the level at which she can safely float on the water, marking a maximum submersion level for the hull. If a vessel's line is too low, it's a sure sign that she's been overloaded with cargo.

• 8:51Speaker 03

  He said, "It looks like it's on your funnel." Well, for the plimsoll line to be on the funnel, the rest of the ship has got to be underwater. So it was a bit of a joke, but nobody paid much attention to it, and off we went.

• 9:07John Hopkins?

  Ignoring the signs that the boat may be carrying too much weight, Mick and his shipmates clamber on to the Blythe Star, only to find that the cabin is in complete darkness. Mick stumbles aboard, trying not to knock anything over or injure himself in the process. It's quickly becoming apparent that this is not going to be a luxurious trip.

• 9:31Speaker 03

  I got on board and there was no meal, no nothing, because there's no power. Somebody had pulled the shore power cord, like a extension cord, out of the ship and threw it in the water. So nobody had a feed, nobody had lights or anything.

• 9:49John Hopkins?

  Mick isn't one to complain, however. He's used to the hardships of life at sea. He may be just a teenager and the youngest member of the Blythe Star, but he's from a family of seafarers and already has two years' experience as a professional mariner. Born in the 1950s, Mick grew up in the Melbourne suburb of Doveton. It was a tough, working-class community where he learned to handle himself from an early age.

• 10:16Speaker 03

  I was always in fights. I was a bit of a hothead. But I hated bullies. I'm not a big bloke, I'm only five foot seven. But I didn't care how big they were. If they were bullies, I was happy to intervene on someone else's part.

• 10:30John Hopkins?

  As the son of a merchant seaman, it seemed only a matter of time before the ocean came calling. But Mick's dad wasn't sure his boy was cut out for the rigors of seafaring and concocted a plan to show him the realities of life aboard a ship. Taking a short boat trip from Melbourne to Portland, Mick's father stowed his son away on board, and the weather for this journey was truly shocking.

• 10:56Speaker 03

  And my father really thought that's gonna kill him, you won't never wanna go to sea after that. But I was the only one that actually got up for breakfast in the morning, everybody else was too crook.

• 11:10John Hopkins?

  Sea legs firmly established, Mick left school and almost immediately joined his first ship, a shell tanker called the Solon.

• 11:19John Hopkins?

  This large industrial vessel was more like a vast floating town, home to hundreds of workers. The hours were long and the work hard. But the facilities were generous, cinema rooms, swimming pools and spacious sleeping quarters. For Mick, not having to share everything with his five siblings was the height of luxury.

• 11:41Speaker 03

  The bosun, who was like a foreman at sea, said, "Well, look, son, I'll take and show you where your cabin is. This is your cabin, there's your bathroom." And I said, "Who else sleeps in here?" He said, "No, that's your cabin." I said, "I get to sleep in here on my own?" "Yeah, yeah, it's your cabin." I said, "That's fantastic."

• 12:02John Hopkins?

  Many aboard the Solon knew Mick's dad from way back. So the older seafarers quickly took the young man under their wing, showing him to the pantry and introducing him to the ship's cook.

• 12:14John Hopkins?

  Turned out, the food wasn't bad either.

• 12:17Speaker 03

  They said, "Well, what would you like, son?" I said, "I'd like a steak." He said, "Okay, yeah, how would you like it? What do you mean, how would you like it? On the plate, I assume?" They said, "No, do you want medium, rare, well done?" I said, "Mate, I haven't had a steak in my life, so I haven't got a clue. I'll leave it up to you." So he gave me a steak, I don't know what it was, but it got devoured in about three minutes.

• 12:44John Hopkins?

  Three T-bone steaks later, it was clear he had made the right decision in becoming a merchant seaman. Despite his father's skepticism, it's a seafarer's life for Mick. He doesn't look back.

• 12:56Speaker 03

  I thought, "I'm in heaven. Can't get any better than this."

• 13:08John Hopkins?

  A couple of years later, on a balmy evening in October 1973, the eighteen-year-old Mick is on the MV Blythe Star as it leaves Hobart. At a mere 371 tonnes, this coastal freighter is a far cry from the spacious luxury of the Solon. This time, the food is basic, and Mick will be sharing a cabin. But it's only a two-day voyage which suits him great. He's keen to get back home to Melbourne as quickly as possible.

• 13:37Speaker 03

  I'd just met a woman, or a young girl. I was only eighteen, and I'd fallen in love with her. And it was her seventeenth birthday that I couldn't go to because I had to go to Hobart and join the ship.

• 13:51John Hopkins?

  The water is calm as the Blythe Star navigates her way through the archipelago of small islands leading away from the Tasmanian coast. The bustle of the docks is soon replaced by the serene expanse of the Southern Ocean. The ship passes between the awe-inspiring Tasman Peninsula to the east, a collection of rock faces that shoot straight up from the water's surface, reaching heights of up to 300 metres.

• 14:17John Hopkins?

  To the west, there's Bunny Island, a remote collection of grass-covered beaches, a haven for wildlife.

• 14:25John Hopkins?

  Once past these natural jetties, the captain of the Blythe Star, a Scotsman named George Crookshank, has a decision to make.

• 14:34John Hopkins?

  Which way to go?

• 14:37John Hopkins?

  Hobart is in the southeast corner of Tasmania. The star's destination, King Island, lies to the northwest, essentially on the opposite side of a circular route. So it's pretty much equidistant to travel up the east coast or the west.

• 14:55John Hopkins?

  The captain's decision would usually be dictated by the weather. But today, conditions are perfect. The water is as flat as a pancake. When it comes to choosing a route, it's a coin toss. Captain Crookshank heads west.

• 15:12John Hopkins?

  Despite a somewhat chaotic introduction, now, as the sun sets and they move into the open ocean, Nick starts to enjoy himself. This really is the life for him. That night, between 2 and 4 a.m., he even takes a shift at the helm.

• 15:30Speaker 03

  It's a hand-steering ship, so it's not easy work with hydraulics or whatever. Got to put a bit more effort into it. So I done my time, and then, I think I did have dinner that night. It's the only meal I had. And then, I went to bed.

• 15:54Speaker 00

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• 16:24Speaker 04

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• 16:54John Hopkins?

  It's daybreak, and the blithe star is heading west, about 10 kilometers off the south coast of Tasmania. The seas remain still as she starts to make a starboard turn to continue her journey north.

• 17:07John Hopkins?

  On the distant horizon, the sun rises above the waterline, and a spectacular orange glow ignites the lone freighter.

• 17:15John Hopkins?

  If anyone were watching, the Blythe Star silhouette would look magical. A solitary shadow in a vast canvas of dawn blue. But there is nobody watching. No other ships as far as the eye can see.

• 17:29John Hopkins?

  Which means that nobody notices the Blythe Star turn and tilt. Her starboard side goes closer and closer to the surface of the water. Where minutes ago she was carving through gentle waves, now she meets with increasing resistance.

• 17:47John Hopkins?

  The weather hasn't changed, but something about the Blythe Star has.

• 17:52John Hopkins?

  That plimsoll line the wharfie was teasing Mick about, now it really is underwater.

• 18:00John Hopkins?

  Any second the ship should right itself, it should regain buoyancy and continue its journey.

• 18:07John Hopkins?

  Only it doesn't. It continues to list.

• 18:12Speaker 03

  I got basically thrown in on my back. Water kept pouring down the Campania Way, that's an alleyway in the accommodation, and started pouring into my cabin.

• 18:23John Hopkins?

  Fuzzy and perplexed, Mick picks himself up off the floor and stumbles towards deck. He doesn't waste time getting dressed. As he rushes along the narrow corridors, the ship continues to list nauseatingly to one side. Mick is soon splashing through icy cold ocean water. It's already knee-deep by the time he finds fellow seaman Malcolm McCarron in the laundry room.

• 18:47John Hopkins?

  What Mick sees next makes his blood run as cold as the water.

• 18:53Speaker 03

  There was water pouring in, pouring in, and we just looked at each other and we both just sort of said, "Let's get out of here."

• 19:02John Hopkins?

  Malcolm's desperate attempts to batten down an open porthole are futile as he is completely soaked by gallon upon gallon of gushing seawater. As the boat continues to tilt, what was once the floor is now a wall. Their starboard side now the ceiling. Mick battles through rapidly flooding passageways trying to reach the deck. Waves cascade down stairwells as he struggles to stay on his feet in the torrent.

• 19:30John Hopkins?

  Eventually, somehow, Mick makes it to the deck where other crew members are already gathered.

• 19:37John Hopkins?

  On the surface at least, sea conditions remain perfectly calm. But the Blythe Star is foundering and lying at a near ninety degree angle in the water.

• 19:48Speaker 03

  We knew the ship was finished and I thought, imagine dying standing on a bloody deck of a ship in freezing cold waters. I sort of resolved in my head that that's it. There's no option. There's nobody else out there. There's nothing.

• 20:06John Hopkins?

  With the portside of the Blythe Star now almost entirely submerged, the ship's lifeboats are inaccessible. Their only hope is the emergency backup, an inflatable life raft ready to be used in dire situations like this. Although "ready" is perhaps a misleading description.

• 20:26John Hopkins?

  Designed for emergency evacuation, the life raft is housed in a solid white container that looks like a large square suitcase. The crew grab the white casing and toss it over the side.

• 20:40John Hopkins?

  It floats exactly as it should, bobbing on the mellow ocean surface. A rope attached to the white case should in theory trigger the gas canisters inside to inflate the life raft directly onto the water. But when a crewmate gives the rope a yank, nothing happens. The raft is not inflating. The men look down in horror. And there's something else.

• 21:07John Hopkins?

  The boat's engine is still running and the propeller sits directly below where the life raft is attempting to launch. Even if they can get it inflated, it'll surely get sucked into the arc of this spinning metal, leaving any escape plan literally in tatters. One sailor, John Eagles, springs into action.

• 21:28Speaker 03

  The chief engineer, when the ship was sinking, he went back down in the engine room and turned the engines off, shut the engines down, and got burnt badly on the leg. That endeavor, I believe, saved our lives.

• 21:42John Hopkins?

  The propeller has stopped. That's one problem down, but the other remains. The life raft still hasn't inflated.

• 21:51John Hopkins?

  As the white case dances up and down in the water next to the sinking vessel, the ship's bosun Stan Leary pulls and pulls at the release cord with all his might.

• 22:01John Hopkins?

  Until eventually.

• 22:06Speaker 03

  It's the most welcome sign that a seafarer could ever, ever see. It just goes boom, and then it just expands, expands, expands, and we all bailed in.

• 22:18John Hopkins?

  Amid a flurry of splashes and shouts, the crewmates managed to scramble into the little raft.

• 22:25John Hopkins?

  Off the ship they may be, but they're not clear of immediate danger. For starters, the raft is still attached to the sinking Blight Star.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  I had the job of getting the painter, which is the line that connects the ship with the life raft. The last thing you want to do is be connected to the ship that's on its way down in the life raft. So I was, everybody was telling me, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up.

• 22:48John Hopkins?

  As Mick struggles with the knot of the painter line, he scans this way and that, instinctively doing a quick head count aboard the raft.

• 22:56John Hopkins?

  Of the ten-man crew, he counts only nine.

• 23:00John Hopkins?

  Chief Officer Ken Jones is nowhere to be seen.

• 23:03Speaker 03

  We can't leave without him, so I was still working on getting the knot which was frozen, and he was in his cabin.

• 23:11John Hopkins?

  Below deck, Ken Jones is trapped. Freezing cold water is pouring into his cabin, making it impossible to open the door wide enough for him to get out.

• 23:22John Hopkins?

  Amazingly, given the circumstances, Ken has the presence of mind to do nothing. He simply waits until his room is fully submerged.

• 23:33Speaker 03

  He had to wait for the water to equalize so he could get his door open. I mean, that's a smart, smart move. It was the only move he had, and if he didn't do it, he would have been dead.

• 23:47John Hopkins?

  Still wrestling with the painter, Mick looks down to see Ken Jones swimming underwater towards them, hopping up to break the surface of the ocean in between the raft and their stricken vessel. Ken is quickly hauled up into the inflatable almost at the exact moment that Mick finally frees the raft from the ship. Not a moment too soon.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  It's the most amazing sight I've ever seen in my life. The bow of the ship just lifted straight up out of the water, and the ship just disappeared.

• 24:22Speaker 03

  Wearing a pair of jockeys and nothing else in the middle of winter. If I hadn't got in the raft, if we hadn't got the raft away, I would have had ten, twenty minutes at best before I was gone.

• 24:38John Hopkins?

  Barely an hour has passed since Mick was first thrown from his cabin bed. Now he, along with the nine other members of the ship's crew, sit exhausted, soaking wet and freezing cold within a small, two-and-a-half-meter-wide dinghy.

• 24:55John Hopkins?

  The deep blue ocean shimmers in the morning sunshine, giving no clue of the mayhem that has just occurred. The Blythe Star has left no trace.

• 25:06John Hopkins?

  Despite everything, its crew members allow themselves a moment to celebrate their miraculous escape.

• 25:13Speaker 03

  All ten of us have survived. We're all just chatting away like a bunch of schoolkids, you know, excited about we'd survived.

• 25:22John Hopkins?

  The euphoria, however, is short-lived.

• 25:26John Hopkins?

  The captain's coin-tossed decision on which route to take, east or west, now has an unforeseen consequence. Nobody outside of this inflatable knows the direction the Blythe Star chose, which majorly complicates any potential search-and-rescue mission. It, in effect, doubles the area the rescuers will have to scour to find them.

• 25:50Speaker 03

  I asked the captain. I said, "Did you get a mayday off?" He said, "No." I said, "Did you get a chance to get the portable VHS radio?" "No." So he got nothing.

• 26:05John Hopkins?

  No mayday sent, no radios aboard. The ten men inside the life raft have no way of communicating with the outside world. They're at least six miles from the nearest land. They are, in short, completely alone.

• 26:20John Hopkins?

  And now the weather starts to turn. The tiny speck of orange is bounced and thrown across a heaving blanket of blue. It causes seasickness in even the most hardy of sailors. The winds pick up, pushing the inflatable south, further out to sea.

• 26:39John Hopkins?

  And for one of the crew, second engineer John Sloan, there is an even more pressing danger.

• 26:45Speaker 03

  He had medications onboard the ship that he couldn't get, he didn't get. It's like, I didn't get a jumper or long pants or anything like that. He didn't get his medication, he just rushed out. He deteriorated very, very quickly.

• 27:04Speaker 00

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• 27:34Speaker 04

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• 28:07John Hopkins?

  It's two days later, 10 kilometers off the coast of Tasmania.

• 28:12John Hopkins?

  Onboard a flimsy craft in the bobbing swell, the crew of the lost ship Blythe Star try to maintain focus. Try to remain optimistic.

• 28:23John Hopkins?

  It's been around 48 hours since their vessel sank. It should be around now that someone notices her failure to arrive at King Island. Surely, a rescue will be launched soon enough. In the meantime, the crew keep busy.

• 28:39Speaker 03

  Everybody got allocated with some responsibilities. It wasn't much. The chief cook or the cook was in charge of the rations and they were pretty ordinary rations, a bit of glucose powder and tin water.

• 28:52John Hopkins?

  The crew might be getting organised, but the life raft itself is completely at the mercy of a weather system known as the roaring forties. Ferociously strong winds, common in the southern hemisphere. Right now, these gales are forcing them further away from the coast. Away from any search and rescue mission being launched. If the craft continues on its current trajectory, the crew could easily freeze to death.

• 29:20John Hopkins?

  One crew member, Ken Jones, tries to rally the troops because he can spot some blurry shapes in the distance.

• 29:29Speaker 03

  Ken Jones, who was the chief mate, was an inspiration. A very, very smart guy. A great guy, brave, tough, tough guy. And he said, "There's lights out here", and he was referring to fishing boats. He says, "There's fishermen out here, and we should be able to get them. They're not that far away."

• 29:50John Hopkins?

  In terrible conditions, the image of a fishing vessel on the horizon looks like a ghost ship. Its nets silhouetted by the fading light of the day. Ken Jones waves a flare over his head in huge, sweeping arcs. The fire burns blood red in the dusk air. Surely, they've been spotted. The ten men are convinced, "This is it. They're saved."

• 30:16John Hopkins?

  Ken holds on as long as he can, the flare singeing his skin, until he stops. His shoulders sag. The flare fizzles out.

• 30:29John Hopkins?

  He can see quite clearly that the fishing boat is changing direction, but not towards them.

• 30:36Speaker 03

  He said, "I'm sorry to say that they've taken off. They've switched off the lights, their deck lights, and they're gone."

• 30:44John Hopkins?

  The sense of abandonment in the raft is palpable. Mick is convinced that these fishermen were interlopers, fishing in Australian waters illegally. Fearing being caught in the act, they ignored the blithe star's flare and fled.

• 31:03Speaker 03

  The international law and practice is that you never leave a seafarer in such a circumstance. Seafarers leaving seafarers is unforgivable, or for any survivor, quite frankly.

• 31:18John Hopkins?

  As morale on board drops, the intensity of the weather increases. Screaming gales hammer the tiny inflatable on all sides. The men cling desperately to the craft's slick, rubbery surface. They huddle together, terrified beneath the canopy, as they tumble over a series of stomach-churning crests and troughs. The sheer power of the Southern Ocean is testing the life raft to breaking point.

• 31:47Speaker 03

  There's no restraints in the raft, nothing to hang on to. We were just bounced around like toys. We're smashing into each other, headbutting each other, and bailing water out as best we can to stay afloat. Like I had ten rounds with Mohammed Ali at the end of it all.

• 32:06John Hopkins?

  For days, the torment continues. They're constantly shifting direction, closer to the coast, further from the coast, almost entirely powerless against the savagery of the open ocean.

• 32:19John Hopkins?

  The crew try their best to steer nearer to the land, putting out the life raft's sea anchor and paddling with what's left of their strength. But they make little to no progress.

• 32:31John Hopkins?

  And then, after seven days at sea, things go from desperate to tragic.

• 32:41John Hopkins?

  Second engineer John Sloan has been without his thyroid medication for a week.

• 32:46John Hopkins?

  Manfully, he has attempted to do his part to be a useful member of the crew, but he's grown weaker and weaker.

• 32:54Speaker 03

  He took his turn in paddling. He took his turn in whatever could be done. In fact, we had to argue with him not to, to sit back and rest. Very soon, he passed away. And that really, that was a kicker, that knocked the stuffing out of us. You know, we half suspected that there would be casualties, but we'd beat the worst opportunity for that to happen by getting off the ship. If we can stay alive and keep working on them finding us, searching for us, we should be right. Little did we know, that wasn't going to be the case at all. That was a body blow and that cranked it up to a much more serious circumstance than where it was. I'd never seen a dead person in my life.

• 33:39Speaker 03

  And he was right next to me.

• 33:45John Hopkins?

  The remaining crew members cover John's body and decide to keep him on board. If help arrives in time, they can at least deliver him to his family.

• 33:55John Hopkins?

  But after another 12 agonizing hours of floating and hoping, there is still nothing.

• 34:01John Hopkins?

  They resolve that they cannot keep John on the raft any longer.

• 34:05Speaker 03

  That was one of the deepest parts of the whole exercise, was to bury him at sea, give him a seafarer's funeral. Me, along with others, helped flip him over the side. And we hardly spoke to each other for a few days, except when we had to, because we had to stay alive and do that, do our best.

• 34:23John Hopkins?

  Dread and desperation gripped the men. Their meager food and water supplies are all but gone. And there is a creeping feeling that they are now just waiting for the inevitable.

• 34:36John Hopkins?

  They paddle when they can, but people are increasingly unable or unwilling to keep the effort up.

• 34:43Speaker 03

  I was so angry because that pause in paddling took us way back out to sea again. You could sense that our stamina and our ability to continue to keep the fight up was waning.

• 35:05John Hopkins?

  Then, eight days after the sinking, the weather finally starts to turn.

• 35:12John Hopkins?

  The wind, that seemed determined to drag them all the way to Antarctica, finally relents, and the inflatable is pushed northward for an extended period of time.

• 35:23John Hopkins?

  Mick is under the life raft's canopy, lying listlessly on his back. He hears the relentless, never-ending slosh and slap of the water on the dinghy. And then he hears something else: his crewmate, Mick Power, calling out from the front of the craft.

• 35:42John Hopkins?

  Everybody, weakly, scrambles towards the edges of the vessel.

• 35:48John Hopkins?

  They are suddenly surrounded by towering rock formations, gnarled, jagged skyscrapers that loom out of the ocean. The battered life raft is being sucked towards these giant hazards, caught in a vortex between three rocky pillars.

• 36:05Speaker 03

  They were huge pinnacles. I mean, three, four hundred feet tall. And there was a small gap between them that we'd got sucked into and couldn't get out. We'd be toast, absolute toast. So me and Mick got a hold of the paddles and just paddled. I don't know where we found our energy, but we paddled and paddled and paddled.

• 36:29John Hopkins?

  The current seems determined to draw them onto the rocks. With a gargantuan effort, Mick plunges his awe into the freezing water again and again and fights for his life. With a final grunt and a heave, they escape the riptide.

• 36:45Speaker 03

  Got through by the skin of our teeth. And then we came out on the other side and could barely move, I was in agony, and Mick was in exactly the same.

• 36:54John Hopkins?

  Both Mick's collapse back into the inflatable, utterly spent. They've used up precious energy. There's almost nothing left in the tank.

• 37:07John Hopkins?

  Darkness falls, and the remaining survivors of the Blythe Star lie, barely moving, around the remnants of their battered inflatable.

• 37:17Speaker 03

  These rafts, they're really just to keep you there for a short period of time, and then you get picked up and rescued and what have you. And this raft was really, worked the arse off it. It was in terrible state.

• 37:29John Hopkins?

  With their vessel and their bodies failing, the men have little hope left to cling on to.

• 37:36John Hopkins?

  But as they drift through the night, something catches Mick's eye.

• 37:41John Hopkins?

  A cliff face. Not another rock in the ocean, it's something more substantial, more solid. It's land. The men squint through the blackness.

• 37:55Speaker 03

  We seen, or we thought we seen, a road along the side of the cliff that we're heading towards. And so, collective wisdom was, well, let's get over and have a look, and then we can determine what our next action is.

• 38:09John Hopkins?

  Summoning his last vestiges of strength, Mick paddles the dinghy in the direction of the rock face. It's brutal. He is on the verge of hypothermia, at times hallucinating and blacking out.

• 38:23John Hopkins?

  Somehow, he and his crewmates steer the raft in the direction of the cliffs.

• 38:29John Hopkins?

  But as they draw close, it becomes obvious they've made a mistake.

• 38:33Speaker 03

  When we got close enough, we realised it wasn't a road, it was just a part of the cliff face. And there's no way there's a car or anything going up and down that.

• 38:44John Hopkins?

  And now, they have ventured too close to the cliffs. A labyrinth of sharp, sinister boulders poke out all around, half-hidden obstacles, each one threatening to tear a final deadly hole in the life raft. Dancing in the froth, slimy black and green tendrils offer the men a lifeline. Mick throws himself to the edge and grabs onto the seaweed, arms trembling. He can't let it slip through his grasp.

• 39:13Speaker 03

  We spent the night hanging on to a kelp, to anchor us as best we can. And if we'd lose it, then have to go and pull up some more kelp.

• 39:29Speaker 00

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• 39:59Speaker 04

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• 40:28John Hopkins?

  It's the following morning.

• 40:31John Hopkins?

  Somehow, the crew have survived another night. Their dinghy remains in one piece. Just.

• 40:41John Hopkins?

  Through exhaustion or delirium, Mick drifted off during the night. It takes him a few moments to get his bearings as one of his raftmates gives him a shake and wakes him up.

• 40:53John Hopkins?

  Birds call above in the cold morning air and Mick's bleary eyes focus on his surroundings.

• 41:01Speaker 03

  Malcolm McCarroll grabbed me and said, "Wake up, wake up. We're close to the beach."

• 41:07John Hopkins?

  Mick is only semi-lucid, but then the sight of the coast snaps him into focus.

• 41:15John Hopkins?

  Last night's deadly rocks have been replaced by a large horseshoe bay. Smatterings of sand lying at the feet of tree-covered granite walls. It's not the most hospitable of locations, but after nine days at sea, it looks like paradise.

• 41:33John Hopkins?

  Mick doesn't waste a second.

• 41:35Speaker 03

  It looked reasonable in comparison to every other potential landing place. And so myself and Mick Power jumped into the water, which was partly stupid because I wasn't a great swimmer at all. But thankfully, the water was only up to your chest, freezing cold. And this beach was full of boulders, huge, massive big boulders and rocks and pebbles. And it wasn't a beach in any shape or form.

• 42:06John Hopkins?

  Finally, Mick and his crewmates are back on land.

• 42:11John Hopkins?

  But no sooner have they arrived than it becomes depressingly apparent their ordeal is far from over. They're still trapped.

• 42:27John Hopkins?

  Mick lies stretched out on the rock-strewn beach, his body numb with hunger and fatigue. Everywhere he looks, all he can see are impossibly steep cliff faces and seemingly impenetrable forest. It looks so inhospitable that one of the men even suggests getting back into the raft. Perhaps they should head out of the bay once more, in the hope of finding a more manageable entry point back into civilization.

• 42:54John Hopkins?

  Mick cannot face this idea. And so he sets off, climbing the steep hills that surround the beach, each one covered with thick woodland. He tackles this challenge with vigor, head down, marching into the dense forest.

• 43:10John Hopkins?

  But the terrain refuses to yield in the face of his youthful determination.

• 43:15Speaker 03

  I endeavored to find an exit to get out of the place, but to no avail, and it was a disaster.

• 43:26John Hopkins?

  Mick returns, breathing heavily, scratched and bruised. Escaping the bay is proven just as hard as escaping the sea.

• 43:35John Hopkins?

  At least the beach does offer a chance for the crew to recoup some strength. Flowing down one of the cliffs is a stream. Mick walks over to investigate.

• 43:46Speaker 03

  There was fresh water, and we just all went up and devoured as much water as we could physically drink. And we had a respite there for a period of time.

• 43:55John Hopkins?

  More hydrated than he's been in days, Mick tries to traverse the cliff face again and again. But it's no use. He's gone for hours at a time, but never gets further than a few meters. Sometimes others come with him, but that doesn't help either. It is impossible to navigate this harsh, overgrown assault course.

• 44:19John Hopkins?

  After another unsuccessful solo attempt, Mick turns back once again. When he returns to the beach, he finds the crew spread out, dotted around the bay, each man in his own little world. Someone is missing.

• 44:36John Hopkins?

  There is no sign of Chief Officer Ken Jones.

• 44:41Speaker 03

  When I come back, I said, "Where's Ken?" And they said, "He's down there." And they pointed to where he was, and he was sitting on a rock. And he took off his jacket and most of his clothes and just looked out the sea. I went up and, you know, gave him a shake, and he was cold as anything. He was, I could tell he was dead. And it broke my heart because he encouraged us to do the things that need to be done. He did things that others should have done and didn't. But Ken was a true leader.

• 45:16John Hopkins?

  Moments later, Mick also discovers the body of Chief Engineer John Eagles. Like Ken, John had been decisive and brave during the ordeal, particularly when shutting off the engines as the Blythe Star sank.

• 45:30John Hopkins?

  Both men have succumbed to exposure. Extreme hypothermia confused their body temperatures, making them feel hot and causing them to peel off their clothes, exposing them to the elements.

• 45:49John Hopkins?

  The weight of tragedy hangs heavily over the bay. But the loss of his crewmates also fortifies Mick's determination to get off the beach.

• 46:00Speaker 03

  So Malcolm, Carol and I made a decision that we were gonna go. And we're not coming back. We're gonna walk, and walk, and walk. And we'll either find something, our rescue or a resource, or we'll die. But we can't sit here, can't stay here.

• 46:17John Hopkins?

  The ship's cook, Alfie Simpson, wants to join Mick and Malcolm for this final attempt. Staying on the beach will only end one way. This really is their last throw of the dice.

• 46:28Speaker 03

  Anything happens to any of us, we gotta keep going. We don't stop for anybody. We keep going until we get out of here.

• 46:43John Hopkins?

  It's the next morning. Yesterday, after hours of slogging through the brush, Mick, Malcolm and Alfie had to rest, huddling up together under a large fern tree for the night.

• 46:55John Hopkins?

  Now, as dawn filters through the canopy, the three men wake, feeble and famished. They set off again.

• 47:05John Hopkins?

  As the day heats up around them, the midday sun pierces holes in the tree line over their heads, casting forlorn shadows on the ground.

• 47:14John Hopkins?

  The forest is slowly starting to thin out.

• 47:18John Hopkins?

  The steepness of the incline starts to level off under their filthy, bloodied feet. Perhaps, they really are making progress after all.

• 47:29John Hopkins?

  And then, seemingly out of nowhere, Mick steps out from the forest and onto a road.

• 47:39John Hopkins?

  A quiet, dirt road, surrounded by dry shrubs, but a road nevertheless.

• 47:45John Hopkins?

  Toes blistered and legs wobbling, they stick to this dusty track, following it as it winds onwards.

• 47:53John Hopkins?

  And then, the men stop.

• 47:57John Hopkins?

  There is a distant sound, something rumbling through the trees.

• 48:03Speaker 03

  We heard a truck, talking to each other, saying, "Does that sound like a truck?" We said, "Yeah, it sounds like a truck going through its gears." I said, "Keep quiet, let's listen to it for a second."

• 48:13John Hopkins?

  The men turn, and sure enough, approaching from behind, is a bright red truck.

• 48:20John Hopkins?

  After eleven appalling days, the end is in sight. They can't blow this chance.

• 48:26Speaker 03

  Let's not scare this bloke off, because we, we look like convicts that have escaped from prison or something. He or she might think, "Let's get out of here, put it in reverse and nick off." So, we waited till the very last minute. We ran down, and just put our hand up. I jumped onto the passenger side. He said, "Who are you, who are you?" I said, "Look, we're off the Blythe Star." He said, "No, you're not, they're dead."

• 48:53John Hopkins?

  It takes a little back and forth to convince the truck driver, a forestry worker named Rod, that they are indeed surviving members of the Blythe Star.

• 49:02John Hopkins?

  Turns out, the search and rescue operation has already been called off, with the authorities concluding the crew must be lost to the sea.

• 49:10John Hopkins?

  And yet, here they are, living and breathing.

• 49:15John Hopkins?

  Mick, Malcolm, and Alfie clamber into Rod's truck, and soon enough, rescuers are dispatched to the bay to recover the remaining survivors, as well as the bodies of Ken and John.

• 49:34John Hopkins?

  While convalescing in hospital, Mick learns that the search for the Blythe Star was called off after just four days.

• 49:43John Hopkins?

  The rescue operation faced problems and confusion from the off. There had been no Mayday signal, no information conveyed about the Blythe Star's chosen route. The authorities didn't know where to look, or what to look out for.

• 50:00Speaker 03

  Nobody knew which way the ship was going, whether it was going west about to King Island, or east about. So instead of looking for a needle in a haystack, we've got two or three needles in haystacks all over the place because of the lack of knowledge of where the preferred route was to get to there.

• 50:20John Hopkins?

  The sinking of the MV Blythe Star and the tragic loss of three of its crew turns out to be a watershed moment in Australian maritime practices.

• 50:30John Hopkins?

  New regulations are introduced regarding life rafts. Emergency position indicating radio beacons, or E-Perbs, become mandatory. And procedures are updated that require captains to make regular check-ins with the maritime authorities.

• 50:46John Hopkins?

  These changes come about in no small part thanks to Mick, as part of his work as an official of the Seamen's Union of Australia. Throughout his career, he has fought tirelessly for seafarers' rights and protections.

• 51:00John Hopkins?

  As for his own story, it takes 42 years before Mick speaks publicly about the Blythe Star.

• 51:07Speaker 03

  I chose not to talk about it at all shortly after the sinking. It has not gone away. It will never go away.

• 51:16John Hopkins?

  Eventually, he decides to share his account, to give the families of his crewmates clarity about what happened. Now, more than half a century has passed since the catastrophe.

• 51:29John Hopkins?

  Reflecting upon it, Mick puts his remarkable survival at sea down to the life he hoped was waiting for him back on land.

• 51:39Speaker 03

  I never ever considered that I was gonna die. I wouldn't allow it. I'd just met a woman and I'd only been going out with her for a few months. And she was off having a seventeenth birthday party while I was flying on my life, on a life raft. And I wanted to marry that woman. I was only eighteen. But I was determined to make a life with that woman, and I did. And we'd been married for fifty years, and I've got two beautiful kids. My son's a seafarer and my daughter's a teacher in the teachers' union. And I've got grandkids. And I'm gonna make the best of my life and be a good father and a good husband. That was my driving force.

• 52:34John Hopkins?

  Next time on Real Survival Stories, we meet Jules Mountain. As his surname suggests, he is a man destined to scale the heights. After battling cancer and emerging with a new lease of life, he takes on the epic challenge of reaching the top of Mount Everest. But when an enormous earthquake causes the slopes of the mountain to crack and crumble around him, Jules is once again left staring death in the face.

• 53:02Speaker 05

  The whole sky, everything I can see, is full of snow and it's hurtling towards us. And I'm thinking, what do I do? What do I do? I'm about to die.

• 53:16John Hopkins?

  That's next time on Real Survival Stories. Listen today without ads and without waiting a week by joining Noiser Plus. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started.

• 53:29Speaker 00

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• 53:59Speaker 04

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