Husband and Wife Gave Up Everything to Sail Halfway Across the World, Then Whale Stranded Them in the Ocean for 4 Months

It took only 40 minutes from nan clip a whale cracked a spread successful their 31-foot yacht until Maurice and Maralyn Bailey watched nan alloy descend successful nan mediate of nan Pacific Ocean.

The yacht was their transition to a caller life successful New Zealand and their only home.

In nan aftermath, nan mates floated alone, together, connected a 4-foot-long rubber raft attached to a 9-foot-long dingy, wherever they had escaped aft nan whale run-in. They had nary motor, nary power and only constricted provisions, including a fewer gallons of h2o and 33 tins of food. 

Worse, because this was 1973, they had nary prospects of anyone easy discovering their location aliases moreover knowing they were missing.

The harrowing communicative of nan couple’s ordeal and eventual endurance much than 50 years agone is being recounted successful nan caller book A Marriage astatine Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck by British journalist Sophie Elmhirst.

The book won nan Gold Prize astatine nan Nero Book Awards earlier this twelvemonth and made Barack Obama's summer reference list.

There's nary doubting that nan Baileys were a quirky mates who dreamed of leaving their staid life successful England for escapade and committedness connected nan precocious seas. They sewage acold much than that erstwhile a adjacent brushwood pinch a whale sank their yacht, nan Auralyn, successful March 1973. 

Maurice’s choices placed them successful moreover much jeopardy, including his determination to complete nan voyage without bringing immoderate connection devices that mightiness person helped them beryllium rescued sooner.

“Part of nan escapist imagination he’d ever had was astir getting distant from different people, unsocial successful nan mediate of nan ocean,” Elmhirst tells PEOPLE. “What ends up happening exposes nan folly of that fantasy.”

The mates spent 118 days — astir 4 months — connected their raft and dingy successful nan unfastened h2o earlier they were rescued by chance by a passing Korean vessel.

Their acquisition made enduring world headlines. The Baileys wrote a book and toured extensively and told their communicative for nan remainder of their lives. Maralyn moreover appeared connected nan TV show To Tell nan Truth.

Elmhirst’s caller relationship is divided into 3 parts: before, during and aft nan yacht sinking that almost costs nan mates their lives. She says she was drawn to understand what was motivating Maurice and Maralyn, who had decided to waste their location and spell sailing crossed nan world en way to New Zealand.

“I was willing successful what it would beryllium for illustration to spell done thing for illustration that arsenic a couple, what effect it would person connected nan remainder of your life,” Elmhirst says.

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The Baileys had sharply different personalities, pinch Maralyn being outgoing and optimistic compared to nan socially awkward loner Maurice.  

He appeared to beryllium improbable matrimony worldly — overmuch little wed an attractive, vivacious female almost a decade younger than him. But Maralyn liked nan truth that Maurice was unconventional, a sailor and daring successful his ain way. 

Neither of them wanted to person children aliases beryllium contained by societal norms. She was eager to get retired of her location and he did not person adjacent ties pinch his family, including his parents, sister and 2 brothers, who each lived nearby.

Elmhirst admits that aft each her investigation and speaking to friends and family of nan couple, “I became very fond of Maurice.”

“He’s cantankerous, truthful it’s difficult for him to beryllium successful institution — but astatine nan aforesaid time, he allowed her [Maralyn] to person a much adventuresome life and she could unfastened up a life for him connected a quality level,” Elmhirst says. “She gave him warmth, support and confidence.”

The bosom of nan couple's story, says Elmhirst, is that erstwhile nan going sewage tough, Maurice was consenting to fto his woman beryllium successful charge. Despite being nan much affable of nan two, she did person a stubborn side.

Maralyn loved sailing yet ne'er learned to swim. In an interview successful March pinch nan BBC, her half-sister Pat Brewin remembered erstwhile telling her, "What are you going to do if you sewage into difficulties aliases into nan sea?’ She said, ‘I’ll beryllium fine.’ "

“And she would, knowing Maralyn," Brewin said. "She would find immoderate measurement retired of it.”

As for hubby and woman choosing to spell connected a world vessel travel without a cardinal instrumentality (a radio) aliases accomplishment (her not being capable to swim), Elmhirst tells PEOPLE "both cases were very conscious choices."

"Maurice wanted isolation, he wanted to beryllium trim off. That was portion of nan dream and nan vision,” nan writer says. “Her not being capable to aquatics was a defiance she had — 'I don’t request to, I don’t want to and I’m not going to.' ”

They had been joined for astir 10 years and were surviving a frugal yet comfortable life erstwhile successful 1972 Maralyn convinced Maurice to waste their home, bargain a vessel and sail to New Zealand to commencement caller lives. 

As Elmhirst writes successful nan book, “Sailing tends to beryllium afloat of group pinch money. Maurice and Maralyn were not those people. The vessel took everything they had.”

The mates yet group disconnected successful June 1972, pinch Maralyn past 31 and Maurice, 39, ne'er imagining they would suffer it all. The adjacent spring, en way to New Zealand, she took a photograph of their sinking yacht from nan tented raft that would go their location for immoderate 16 weeks.

"I person ever put nan in installments down to Maralyn that she saved me," Maurice said successful an interview pinch nan BBC broadcast successful 2014. "She was nan guiding ray successful everything we did."

After their nutrient had almost ran out, they made hooks from information pins and caught fish, mini sharks, seabirds and turtles to eat earthy and utilized a tarp to trap and cod rainwater to drink.

After Day 100, they started making endurance plans if 1 of them died, stranding nan other.

“These included nan anticipation that 1 mightiness person to eat nan other’s body,” Maralyn said successful a newspaper. “But we were some truthful emaciated that location were nary edible parts isolated from possibly our tummy areas.”

Elmhirst says now that she was struck by nan improvement of nan mates erstwhile things went truthful very wrong. Maurice, who designated himself arsenic nan skipper and past connection connected nan boat, could not header pinch nan regular struggles of staying alive.

“He fto spell of immoderate thought of him being a leader and she steps up,” Elmhirst says.

Brewin, Maurice's sister, later told nan BBC that "for each food [Maralyn] caught, she utilized to prevention nan eyes and telephone them Smarties [after nan cocoa sweet] — truthful they had a 'Smartie' astatine night."

After returning to barren land, nan mates became vegetarians, Brewin added.

The Baileys had drifted almost 1,500 miles, into nan dormant of summer, erstwhile they were rescued by a South Korean sportfishing vessel connected June 30, 1973. At slightest 7 different ships had passed nan couple, ne'er seeing them.

The Baileys returned to England, wrote their book astir their experiences and bought different boat, Auralyn II.

They moreover went connected a voyage to Patagonia pinch a mini unit of friends who liked Maralyn and appeared to mostly tolerate Maurice. (Some moreover returned location earlier reaching their last destination because Maurice made nan travel intolerable, Elmhirst writes.)

After sifting done nan offers from nan British papers, they decided to sell their full account to The Daily Express for nan sizeable sum of £10,000 — aliases astir $100,000 coming — Elmhirst writes. (Paying for interviews is mostly forbidden by news outlets successful nan U.S. but is wide accepted successful nan U.K.)

The Express sent journalists Ivor and Sally Davis to question and reply Maralyn and Maurice, and nan 4 stayed successful touch for nan remainder of their lives. 

The mates yet settled backmost into regular life and regular problems. Maralyn was diagnosed pinch crab and died successful 2002 astatine 61.

"Once she sadly passed, he reverts backmost to his earlier self," Elmhirst says of Maurice.

Even arsenic Maralyn's crab spread, she was still looking aft her husband, trying to group up a matrimony betwixt him and a azygous acquaintance for erstwhile he became a widower.

The woman, however, declined nan offer. Maurice lived a solitary life until his ain decease successful December 2018. He was 85.

“Maurice drifted aimlessly aft her death,” Ivor Davis tells PEOPLE. “I went to spot him erstwhile he was connected his ain and he was a sad, sad fellow. She was nan powerhouse successful nan relationship. She was nan driving force. And he had mislaid his anchor.”