This is a lovely short film, by Alvaro Cerezo, featuring the late Maurice Bailey who, with his wife Maralyn spent 117 days adrift in a liferaft in the Pacific Ocean in 1972. The couple sold everything to buy their boat and left the UK heading for a new life in New Zealand. Their Golden Hind 31 Auralyn, a long keel wooden design with two blade-like bilge keels, sank after it was hit by a large whale and started to take on water. After trying to stem the water with bedding and using a sail around the outside of the boat the couple were forced to abandon and take to their liferaft and Avon Redstart dinghy. Theirs is a tale of incredible survival as they lived off fish, turtles and the occasional seabird. When they were eventually rescued Maurice relates how he was in two minds about returning to civilisation and when asked if he would do it again says yes, and that he’d enjoy being among the ocean wildlife again and away from civilisation.
The couple carried on sailing after their ordeal, buying a new boat Auralyn II and publishing their book 117 Days Adrift. They never had children and after Maralyn died in 2002 Maurice was alone; he died in December 2018
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There is a great article to accompany this film on Alvaro’s docastaway website: HERE
