# Stubborn Guy



## davidpm (Oct 22, 2007)

Older story but I hadn't seen it before.

Boat builder stranded alone at sea for 50 DAYS after mast snapped as he crossed the Atlantic in friend's boat | Mail Online


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## jimgo (Sep 12, 2011)

Not stubborn. He read the other threads here about calling the Coast Guard every time you stub your toe or a sail rips, and decided he didn't want to wind up on the negative side of one of our threads.

Did you notice the last paragraph?


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## CalebD (Jan 11, 2008)

One tough cookie!


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## PCP (Dec 1, 2004)

CalebD said:


> One tough cookie!


No, a sailor.

*Matt and sailing partner Will Claxton hope to take part in next year's Fastnet Race, which they have won twice before.*

Read more: Boat builder stranded alone at sea for 50 DAYS after mast snapped as he crossed the Atlantic in friend's boat | Mail Online 
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

He brought his friend's boat home. In the end the owner received money more than enough to repair the boat

*"A catamaran owner has received substantial compensation from Yachting World after the magazine wrongly accused him of being a convicted cocaine smuggler.
The allegation in December last year had a highly detrimental effect on Nicholas Cokes's reputation within the sailing and surfing community and he - and his family - had suffered a great deal of distress and embarrassment, solicitor Zoe Brocket told London's High Court."*

Read more: Homeblown cornwall windsurf surf cocaine cokes orinoco flo Matt gill | Western Morning News

*In December 2012 Yachting World ran an article with the headline "The Man who didn't want to be rescued". The article concerned Mr Gill and the rescue. However it referred to the Claimant as the owner of the Orinoco Flo and went on to allege he had served time for cocaine smuggling.

This allegation was wholly untrue and obviously extremely damaging to the Claimant. Yachting World had made a mistake. It was a previous owner of the Orinoco Flo who had been imprisoned for smuggling cocaine.*

News: Yachting World agrees to pay damages to Catamaran Owner | Inforrm's Blog

Regarding the rescue:

*Matthew Gill's yacht Orinoco Flo was spotted by a rescue helicopter about 85 miles (137km) off the Isles of Scilly on Monday.

En route to Falmouth from Antigua, the missing yacht had been out of radio contact since 2 June.

Mr Gill told BBC News: "I had no chance of dying, I was going to make it home."

The single-handed skipper of the yacht lost his mast in bad weather about 850 miles (1,367km) out in the Atlantic.

He said: "I only had 80 miles left to go; so I was so, so close to doing it all under my own steam.

"When the helicopter turned up, I thought, 'who the hell has called a helicopter for me? I didn't'.

"I had no chance of dying, I was making reasonable progress, incredibly slow, but I was going to make it home.

"It was only a question of taking a long time."

Mr Gill said he had been sailing along "quite happily" off the Isles of Scilly when a Royal Navy helicopter from RNAS Culdrose in Cornwall "came over the horizon and hovered above me".

"I turned the radio on and they were like, 'are you well? there's a distress call out for you', even though I had made no distress call myself."

The helicopter told Mr Gill that his radio had not been transmitting.

"I thought my radio was OK, but it wasn't. I could receive, but I couldn't transmit.

"They said St Mary's lifeboat had offered to come and pick me up, 'if you accept raise your left hand', so I raised my left hand."

Three hours later the lifeboat was dispatched and towed Mr Gill to safety. It took about 10 hours.

Ken Bazeley, from Falmouth Coastguard, said: "He would probably have continued if we hadn't rescued him but he was happy to take the tow and I think that was the right thing to do.

"He still had a fair old way to go, so he decided to accept the help of St Mary's lifeboat."

RNLI's Steve Watt said: "We launched the lifeboat, because there was a perceived danger to his life.

"He was in a disabled yacht in the Western Approaches, a busy shipping area, and on balance considered that he could have been in danger."

After refuelling on the Isles of Scilly, Mr Gill plans to travel on to Falmouth on Thursday.*

BBC News - Skipper of missing Orinoco Flo 'gutted' to be rescued

Regards

Paulo


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## Schleprock (Nov 12, 2012)

Pretty interesting.


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