A weekend voyage in the South Pacific became a fight for survival after the yacht Tai Tam collided with a whale and started flooding. The four people aboard eventually abandoned the vessel and spent around 18 hours in a life raft before the container ship MV Sofrana Surville reached them.
The sailors are two Australians, a New Zealander and a French national. Their accounts state the collision, the damage to the yacht, their attempts to keep it afloat and the eventual rescue.
