mrmoshe Posted November 6, 2007 Share Posted November 6, 2007 Man clings to harbour buoy for seven hours A MAN has survived more than seven hours in Darwin harbour by clinging to the buoy that tipped him from his dinghy. Commanding officer of HMAS Coonawarra, Stuart Wheeler, said the man must have had "angels looking after him". The solo boater is believed to have left Darwin Harbour at about 9.30pm (CST) yesterday. About half an hour later he crashed into a buoy, used to mark an historic wreck outside the mouth of the harbour. "When he hit the buoy the impact of it threw him into the water and, unfortunately, he had missed one of the big rules, which is you don't go to sea by yourself," Commander Wheeler said. "He is on the water with no life jacket, no safety equipment and no flares and his boat has just kept on going." The man crawled out of the water and onto the buoy, which Commander Wheeler said was about two metres in diameter and two metres high. Meanwhile, his boat kept travelling for another four to five hours. "It managed, with the incoming tide and by sheer coincidence, to beach itself on a patch of the security control route at the naval base," Commander Wheeler said. "The thing that I find remarkable is that we have patrol officers going past there every two hours ... "There is six times as much water in Darwin harbour as there is in Sydney harbour, so he would not have been easy to find." When the patrol officer found the boat the motor was still running and there were keys inside, along with a wallet and mobile phone. Police were called, and used the boat's GPS to track it's path earlier in the night. "The GPS was still on ... we proceeded to that point and bingo there he was," Commander Wheeler said. "The guy must have angels looking after him last night." The man was found, suffering from exposure and dehydration, at about 5.30am (CST) about 21km from where his boat ran ashore. Commander Wheeler said he was lucky to be alive. "He should have had money on the races today ... this was a near death experience," he said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arpie Posted November 7, 2007 Share Posted November 7, 2007 Wow! That is one lucky punter!!! If he hadn't been able to clamber onto the buoy, he would have been stuffed, for sure!! The GPS wouldn't have located him then! You would expect the buoy to have a light on it?? Mind you, people run into bridges with lots of lights on them .... Roberta Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregL Posted November 7, 2007 Share Posted November 7, 2007 That's one lucky bugger! If he was in Sydney harbour he would have been showered by people chucking sluggos at him all day, lucky he was up there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skunga Posted November 7, 2007 Share Posted November 7, 2007 That's one lucky bugger! If he was in Sydney harbour he would have been showered by people chucking sluggos at him all day, lucky he was up there! haha too funny and very true! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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