The Last Voyage of the Lucette

By Douglas Robertson

 

Sailing, April 2006:

"Thirty-two years ago, British sailor Dougal Robertson published a first-hand account of his family's experience on a sailing voyage around the world. This was not however, a recounting of exotic ports and challenging passages. Rather, it described the horror of shipwreck and how six people in one tiny dinghy survived the perils of the open ocean for 38 days.

Robertson's Survive the Savage Sea became a classic and ultimately Hollywood brought the story to the silver screen in 1992 with Robert Ulrich and Ali McGraw playing Robertson and his wife, Lyn.

Still, Robertson believed there was more to share. Before his death in 1991, he asked his eldest son, Douglas, to make sure the family's saga would be told in its entirety.

Enter Douglas Robertson's book. The Last Voyage of the Lucette. Incorporating most of his father's original text, Robertson expands the story scope. Drawing from newspaper articles, discussions with family members, Dougal's notes and his own recollections, he breathes life into every aspect of the Robertson clan journey—physically or emotionally— from their start in Falmouth England, to their eventual rescue by the Japanese ship Toka Maru roughly 300 miles west of Costa Rica.

After struggling with farming for years, Dougal saw an around-the-world voyage as an unparalleled opportunity to educate his four children—Douglas, Anne and twins Neil and Sandy—and to make up for, as he put it, all those cold nights and empty dinner tables, the holidays they never had and the days when we sent them to school in shoes that didn't fit.'

The Robertson's planned their trip for two years. A 50-year old, 43- foot schooner named LUCETTE became the new family home, and they finally cast off the docklines on January 27, 1971.

Part One is an exciting foray into the world of liveaboard cruising as the family sails across the Atlantic to the Windward Islands and the Bahamas, where teenage daughter Anne falls in love and decides not to continue the trip. The pages turn so quickly, it's effortless to follow along as this colorful family sails onward to Jamaica, the Panama Canal—where they take on Welsh traveler Robin to fill Anne's empty place—and the Galapagos.

It all comes to a shocking abrupt halt in the morning hours of June 15, 1972, when Lucette is attacked by a pod of orcas. While all six ultimately reached the life raft safely, they are faced with a daunting situation. They are alone on the Pacific Ocean, five weeks from anyone knowing they are missing, well beyond the shipping lanes and they don't have nearly enough food or water.

Part two is a day-by-day account of the shipwrecked family's time at sea. The Robertson's story is remarkable in that the group of six had to abandon their deflating life raft and survive aboard the tiny dinghy Ednamair during their 38-day odyssey.

'It is essentially Dougal's story,' his son notes. 'For his superhuman efforts in getting us all home in one piece, and for giving us those two short years aboard Lucette, I shall thank him every day of my life.' "

 

The ENSIGN, June 2005:

“Author Douglas Robertson was only 16 years old when his father, a hard-pressed English dairy farmer and former ship's officer, decided to sell his farm and buy a vessel to sail his family around the world. In 1971, the LUCETTE, a 43-foot wooden schooner, became their home.

They crossed the Atlantic to the Caribbean, passed through the Panama Canal and arrived at the Galapagos Islands. But several days later, killer whales sank the LUCETTE.

Robertson and his family spent the next 16 days aboard their life raft with their dinghy in tow. On the 17th day, the raft sank, forcing the family to cram into their 9-foot dinghy. They endured the close quarters for 22 days until being rescued by a Japanese fishing vessel.

You'll be spellbound as the author recounts how his family overcame disaster and survived when all hope of rescue had vanished.

Although the author's father, Dougal Robertson, already told the same story in Survive the Savage Sea, this new book covers more ground and includes materials based on the memories of all the survivors.

Douglas Robertson eventually became chief officer in the British Merchant Navy but left the sea in 1980 to become an accountant. He now lives with his family in London.”


The Nautical Magazine, April 2005:

"…This book is the story of an epic voyage that went disastrously wrong, is really well-written, and the hardships and the arguments in such a confined space is well documented. How these people survived in such conditions is beyond comprehension. Only after seeing the photograph of the dinghy EDNAMAIR, can it be truly imagined the size of this tiny craft, there was barely room to lie down, let alone take six people. The book of 370 pages consists of many diagrams and photographs. I can only describe it as awesome, a fantastic read and thoroughly recommended. I could not believe what I was reading!”


Royal Naval Sailing Association Journal, Spring 2005:

“The publicity around the RNSA first Whitbread in 1968 prompted the young twin Neil to say: ‘Daddy's a sailor, why don't we sail around the world?’ Daddy, a former chief officer, had left the sea and was now a struggling and disillusioned farmer. The family with four children sold up and bought the 43 foot, 19 ton schooner LUCETTE.

Survive the Savage Sea written by Dougal Robertson, Douglas's father, was published in 1973 and was later made into a film. In the middle of the Pacific, killer whales attacked and sank LUCETTE in minutes. The family survived thirty-eight days living off the sea in a 9 foot dinghy, and ten-man life raft which fell apart after nineteen days. The six of them miraculously survived in the dinghy with a nine inch freeboard, often having to bail for their lives, before a Japanese fishing boat rescued them. Douglas, a former chief officer with the Maersk line, has re-written his father's book which had only established the facts of how they survived. The new book, with previously untold details, gives the reader an insight into the emotional highs and lows experienced during the 18 months of cruising, and the thirty-eight days after the sinking. They survived by catching fish, and turtles which gave them much needed nourishment. Sir Robin Knox-Johnston has written the foreword.

The final classic remark came from the young twin Neil experiencing shipboard boredom on the way home; he missed the excitement of life in the life raft!

This adventure becomes more compelling in the context of father having previously survived his ship being sunk by the Japanese during WWII; and Douglas, as Cadet in his first ship, surviving his second sinking in the Pacific.”


Latitudes & Attitudes, May 2005:

“The author has taken his father's classic book, Survive the Savage Sea, about their family's survival when their boat was sunk by killer whales during a Pacific crossing, and added his own account. He also tells the story of the 18-month voyage through the Atlantic, Caribbean and Panama Canal that preceded the shipwreck. This is a fascinating read.”

Yachting Monthly, February 2005:

“Douglas Robertson, son of Dougal Robertson, who wrote the best selling book, Survive the Savage Sea, describing his family's 38-day ordeal after their yacht sank in the Pacific, has written his own account.

The family's 43 ft. schooner LUCETTE was holed and sunk in 1972 by a pod of killer whales south-west of the Galapagos Islands. Douglas' father, Dougal, mother Lyn, twin brothers Neil and Sandy, and an unsuspecting hitchhiker lived on a semi-inflated liferaft and a 9 ft. dinghy before being picked up by a Japanese trawler.

Douglas' book, The Last Voyage of the LUCETTE, with a foreword by Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, is billed as ‘the full, previously untold story’ of the drama.

Douglas reveals how his father was shipwrecked once before: in a tramp steamer, ‘SS SAGAING, which sank in the Indian Ocean after an attack by Japanese fighter planes during WWII. Just as astonishingly, he tells how he, too, was also shipwrecked in the Pacific as a navigating cadet aboard the oil tanker British Ambassador, sunk following a structural failure.”

Midwest Book Review, November 2005:

"The Last Voyage of The Lucette is the complete and previously untold true story of an event first described by the author's father, Douglas Robertson, in "Survive the Savage Sea." Here, the son interweaves his own perspective - he was eighteen years old at the time - with the original narrative of a harrowing nautical voyage. In January 1971, the Robertson family set sail from England in an attempt to circumnavigate the globe; eighteen months later in the middle of the Pacific, their 43-foot schooner Lucette was holed by killer whales and sank. Four adults and two children survived for 38 days adrift in a survival raft, then a 9-foot dinghy, until a Japanese fishing vessel rescued them. A gripping narrative of survival, and especially, the difficulties of getting along together in extremely cramped quarters and desperate conditions. A handful of black-and-white and color photographs illustrate this amazing story of family togetherness under the most unusual and trying situations."

 


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