Timothy Lyndsay Shaddock, 54, a resident of Sydney, Australia, and dog Bella were rescued 1,000 miles from land by the crew of a Mexican tuna boat over the weekend.
Shaddock and Bella, departed from La Paz, Mexico, three months ago. A month into his journey, a storm struck his white catamaran, wiping out all electronics.
The resourceful sailor says he and Bella survived three months at sea eating raw fish and drinking rainwater. He avoided sunburn by sheltering under his boat’s canopy.
In a gross understatement, Shaddock said, “I have been through a very difficult ordeal at sea,” adding that he had fishing and other survival gear with him. We can only surmise that it was this lucky fact that saved their lives.
“I’m just needing rest and good food because I’ve been alone at sea a long time,” he said, adding, “I have not had food, enough food, for a long time.”
A doctor who treated Shaddock on the trawler said that the sailor had “normal vital signs.”
Shaddock and Bella were spotted last week by a helicopter accompanying a tuna trawler, which was on its way back to Mexico, according to 9News. It was unclear when Shaddock first left Mexico, and where he and Bella were rescued.
The trawler was on its way back to the west coast of Mexico, where Shaddock would receive further care, according to 9News.
Shaddock’s good luck to have a canopy under which to shelter was of paramount significance. “If you get sunburn, that affects your ability to regulate your body temperature,” said Mike Tipton, a physiology professor at the extreme environment laboratory at the University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom. He added that Shaddock could otherwise sweat up to 1 or 2 liters an hour.
“If you do absolutely nothing and you rest and you stay cool, you can get away with as less as 110 to 220 milliliters of water a day,” he said.
Rather than being an additional burden, the dog’s presence helped Shaddock survive. “He had companionship. Once you’ve got enough food and water, then I think the dog has an advantage,” Tipton said. “Your survival time is as long as you can keep collecting water, getting occasional food and doing things that help you stay positive,” he added.
This expert makes it sound easy, but it is doubtful that such an ordeal could be anything but life-threatening and only the most adept—or the luckiest—could come out of it as unscathed as Shaddock and Bella.
Finding Shaddock was like a “needle in a haystack” in the enormous Pacific Ocean, Tipton said, especially since the helicopter was not even actively looking for him. “It was a combination of luck and the right behavior.”
