Ten metres to safety

Rescue had arrived, but for Murray Bindon, 70 at the time, safety still depended on ten metres of rope.

In pitch darkness, rain lashing down, a 229-metre container ship loomed above a small liferaft taking on water. Inside sat Murray and two crewmates, Mexican skipper Victor Campos and fellow Kiwi sailor Sam Boyd. Six hours they had been adrift in the Pacific, battered by winds up to 60km/h and swells of three to four metres, with steep waves breaking on top.

Only hours earlier, Murray had been asleep aboard Sunny Deck, a 57-foot Bavaria yacht sailing from Acapulco to Auckland, when Victor burst below deck shouting a single word in Spanish: “Fuera!” (Out!)

Murray and Sam were instantly awake. Thick, toxic smoke filled their cabin, so dense that they could barely see. “There was no time to panic,” Murray recalls. “We acted instinctively, knowing it was life-or-death.” In near-gale winds and heavy seas, the crew released the liferaft and activated the distress beacon, just as Sunny Deck became engulfed in flames. As they drifted away, they heard their home for the past 10 weeks explode, along with all their personal belongings.

What followed was waiting and endurance. With one pontoon punctured, hypothermia became a growing concern as their raft brought in cold seawater. “For nearly five hours, I held the distress beacon up through a small opening in the canopy,” Murray says. “Lying in the cold water, I started to lose feeling in my back.”

They bailed water, tried to plug the leak, and talked through what might come next - estimating their position, the likelihood of rescue, and how long supplies might last.

At one point, Murray suggested they pray. He began with a simple prayer. Sam followed. Then Victor prayed in Spanish. Out there in the vast
ocean, the moment felt small and sacred… quiet, steadying, and grounding.

The container ship had been sent by the Rescue Coordination Centre in Wellington. When the crew saw the burning yacht in the distance, they sounded the horn. Victor opened the canopy and saw two lights in the darkness.

“A ship!” They fired a flare. The ship manoeuvred carefully towards the tiny liferaft in the heavy seas. But the rescue was not complete… not yet. Between Murray and the ship’s deck above was a rope ladder hanging ten metres down a steel hull. The rungs were narrow, slick with rain, and winging hard with the swell.

Barefoot and soaked, Murray reached for the ladder and missed. Trying again on the next swell, he was able to grab it higher, only to be wrenched
suddenly into the air as the ladder went taut, as the raft rose on a wave. There was no time to think about his shoulder reconstruction surgery from the year before.

“Adrenaline takes over, and you hang on for dear life,” he said. Moments later, he was hauled over the rail. Safe at last.

While Murray was fighting to survive at sea, his wife, Yolanda, was enduring her own ordeal on land. Told only that an emergency signal had been sent, she waited without any answers. “You don’t know what to think,” she said. “Is he alive? Is he drowning? Is he already gone?”

Now a resident of in Hamilton and Chair of the Residents Association Committee, Murray reflects on his experience. “It was nothing short of a miracle, a real testament to faith, teamwork, and the incredible support of the rescuers who saved our lives that day.”