After tossing around in 20-foot seas in the Davis Strait for eight or nine hours, Captain Byron Oxford and his eight crewmembers heard the distinct sound of a ship’s horn. Looking through the canopy opening of their life raft, they saw a large ship in the distance. Approximately an hour later, the ship drew near and attempted to rescue the crew of the Atlantic Charger, but getting a small rubber raft safely alongside a large steel ship in heavy seas was not an easy task — let alone getting in a secure position to evacuate nine men. This is Part IV of “Dreamboat Turned Nightmare.”
As their raft was pulled closer to the side of the ore carrier Arctic, Byron saw a rope ladder dangling loosely on the side of the ship.
Someone on the deck yelled that the men would have to jump from the raft and grab the hanging rope and then climb up.
Byron says the chances of accomplishing that feat were nil.
“With the sea state we had, one minute we were eyeballing the rails of the ship and the next thing we were 40 feet below. I had two men in bad shape so there was no way. I’m in good shape but to try and time a jump from the raft and grab hold of that rope in those conditions was impossible, even for me. So I yelled out to buddy and told him he was crazy, that he must be f—–g trying to kill us!”
With that, the ship’s crew swung a gangway over the side and although that apparatus was more secure than the rope ladder, it was far from ideal.
“They put it down alongside the side of the ship and when the ship listed and heaved, the end of the gangway was under water sometimes and then way above us a few seconds later. And, to make matters worse they had us [raft] tied on to the ship so we didn’t have any control of the situation at all,” Byron says.
Byron’s worst fears came perilously close to becoming reality at one point. Being tethered to the ship meant the raft was rising and falling within inches from the large steel vessel and Byron was afraid that if the counteracting motions of the raft, seas and ship drew them directly underneath the gangway, they could get smashed from the top. And sure enough, that is exactly what happened.
“We were sitting in a circle in the raft — all our feet were more or less touching each others. I was sitting by the canopy opening and could see what was going on but the boys couldn’t see anything. All of a sudden I saw us rising real fast under the gangway and I yelled ‘boy’s duck!’ and they did. The top of the canopy struck the bottom of the gangway like I figured it would and if the boys didn’t have their heads down between their legs it could have been a real bad scene.”
No one was injured but the canopy received serious damage as the top flume was torn. Byron was incensed.
“I knew they were trying to save us but they were making things worse than ever. I yelled that they should cut us free. Instead, they hauled up the gangway to the deck but we were still tied to the ship. At one point we were under the stern and sometimes we could see the rudder and sometimes the counter was almost level with the water — it was a scary situation and there was nothing we do about it, we were stuck to that ship like a magnet,” Byron says.
Just when they thought things couldn’t get any worse, the raft was yanked alongside the ship directly under a floodgate just as the large vessel pitched toward the raft spilling water from the deck crashing down upon them like a waterfall.
For Captain Byron Oxford and his crew, it was the worst moments of their entire lives. Scraping alongside a large ship in a rubber life raft, battered by raging seas, wet and cold in freezing temperatures in the darkness of night and unable to see what was going on outside was as terrifying as it can get.
Meanwhile, the man on the ship’s deck in charge of the rescue mission continued to yell to Byron, hoping to find a solution. He said he didn’t have a zodiac so Byron asked of they had a raft. He replied affirmatively and several minutes later, Byron and his shipmates finally had some reason for hope.
“They put a raft over the side and hauled it close to the one we were in and we crawled out of our raft into the new one. Then they dropped a couple of garbage bags tied together and they had food in it and a radio. That was really good because now we were dry; we had food and we had communications so now we could wait for a while because we expected the helicopter soon,” he says.
But, when Byron talked to the captain of the Arctic on the radio they had just been delivered, his roller coaster of ups and downs took another swing down. The captain informed him that a helicopter wouldn’t be there until daylight.
The thought of having to spend all night and early morning in a life raft was scary, but then Byron realized they were getting more comfortable in the dry raft. With food and an undamaged raft, they were also warming up a bit so as long as they had relative shelter in the lee of the freighter, perhaps they could survive till morning. But still, Byron and the Arctic’s captain continued to discuss other possible rescue options.
The captain of the big ship said there were other vessels on the way and would be there within an hour or two. The first to arrive was the Paamiut, a fishing trawler from the Faroe Islands that was in the area carrying out turbot research for the Danish government.
Now equipped with a radio, Byron could be part of the decision making process in planning an evacuation from the raft to the Paamiut. The first bit of business was to confirm that the trawler had a zodiac.
“I explained to him what we had gone through and the only way to get us onboard was to do it with the zodiac. I said the best way was to come and take two of our fellas at a time. I said ‘don’t worry about us panicking and all trying to jump onboard at the same time and cause a bad situation, we’ll do it orderly,’” Byron explained.
After shooting a flare in the night sky to give the Paamiut a fix on their precise location, Byron and crew didn’t have long to wait before the zodiac with two men onboard pulled alongside. The first two crewmembers from the Atlantic Charger were taken from the raft and a few minutes later were hoisted onboard the trawler to safety.
Back in the life raft, the remaining seven Newfoundland men were overjoyed to see the zodiac hoisted from the ocean and then a couple of minutes later, lifted back down to rescue the next two.
Although it was the best way to transfer from life raft to the large trawler, the evacuation wasn’t without some anxious moments. On a couple of occasions the ship took a heavy list while hoisting the zodiac from the ocean to the deck and, in the heavy’s seas and high winds, it took a highly skilled crane operator to keep the zodiac from smashing against the side of the ship.
Finally, Byron and the mate were onboard ending the successful transfer of all nine men as the crew from the Atlantic Charger was united once again.
After several emotional phone calls to family members to let everyone know they were safe, Byron had to decide on how to get home to Newfoundland.
The Paamiut was headed to Greenland, but Byron was the only one with a passport and he was concerned about delays getting everything cleared. Another option was to go to Iqaluit, but after their terrible ordeal of nearly 20 hours, the men were anxious to get back home.
The Faroese captain mentioned that the Katsheshuk II, a Newfoundland-based vessel owned by Ocean Choice International was in the vicinity and suggested a transfer to the shrimper. The thought of another transfer at sea was daunting but after a brief discussion with his crewmembers, Byron said that sounded like the best option and both vessels headed for sheltered waters in the lee of Resolution Island where the last transfer of the Charger’s crew at sea was successfully carried out.
“We were treated like gold [on the Katsheshuk II],” Byron says.
The OCI crew gave each of the nine survivors dry clothes, matching the size of each man as closely as possible to the donor. Three days later they arrived in Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, where family members warmly welcomed them home.
For Byron Oxford and his crew, the most harrowing experience of their lives had ended happily. The next challenge was to deal with the post trauma stress and trying to get their lives back to normal.
Byron went back to sea shortly after the sinking, but he was anxious. Now, more than a year later, he is slowly regaining full composure.
The Atlantic Charger’s owner, Brad Watkins didn’t have to face the horror that his captain and crew dealt with on September 22, 2015, but his challenges and struggles were just about to begin.
Join us next month as we hear from Brad regarding the frustrations and corporate fallout of the sinking and getting his business back to normal.
