WORLD

Friends' sailing adventure

ends in a dramatic rescue
after a whale sinks their boat
in the Pacific
Rick Rodriguez and three of his friends had been
on what was meant to be an epic adventure earlier
this month when their vessel was hit by a whale
and sank in the Pacific Ocean.

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March 22, 2023, 8:21 AM EDT / Updated March 22,

2023, 9:47 AM EDT

By Chantal Da Silva and Sam Brock

What started as a sailing adventure for one

man and three of his friends ended in a
dramatic rescue after a giant whale sank his
boat, leaving the group stranded in the
middle of the Pacific Ocean for hours and
with a tale that might just be stranger than
fiction.

Rick Rodriguez and his friends had been on

what was meant to be a weekslong crossing to
French Polynesia on his sailboat, Raindancer,
when the crisis unfolded just over a week ago.

They had been enjoying some pizza for lunch

when they heard a loud bang.

"It just happened in an instant. It was just a

very violent impact with some crazy-sounding
noises and the whole boat shook," Rodriguez
told NBC's "TODAY" show in an interview that
aired Wednesday.

"It sounded like something broke and we

immediately looked to the side and we saw a
really big whale bleeding,” he said.

The impact was so severe that the boat's

propeller was ruptured and the fiberglass
around it shattered, sending the vessel into
the ocean.

The friends are lucky to be alive after a giant

whale sank their boat as they sailed across the
Pacific Ocean. Rick Rodriguez

As water began to rush into the boat, the

group snapped into survival mode.

"There was just an incredible amount of water

coming in, very fast," Rodriguez said.

Alana Litz, a member of the crew, described

the ordeal as "surreal."

"Even when the boat was going down, I felt

like it was just a scene out of a movie. Like
everything was floating," she said.

Rodriguez and his friends acted fast, firing off

mayday calls and text messages as they
activated a life raft and dinghy.

He said he sent a text message to his brother

Roger in Miami and to a friend, Tommy Joyce,
who was sailing a "buddy boat" in the area as a
safety measure.

“Tommy this is no joke," Rodriguez wrote in a

text message. "We hit a whale and the ship
went down."

"We are in the life raft," he texted his friend.

"We need help *ASAP."

Raindancer sank within about 15 minutes, the

group said. Their rescue took much longer
that, with the four friends out on the open
waters for roughly nine hours before they
could be sure they would live to tell the tale.

Peruvian officials picked up the group's

distress signal and the U.S. Coast Guard was
alerted, with its District 11 in Alameda,
California, being in charge of U.S. vessels in
the Pacific.

Ultimately, it was another sailing vessel, the

Rolling Stones, that came to the group's aid
after Joyce shared the incident on a Facebook
boat watch group.

Geoff Stone, captain of the Rolling Stones,

said they were about 60 or 65 miles away
when his crew members realized that their
vessel was the closest boat.

After searching the waters, they were

eventually able to locate the group of friends.

“We were shocked that we found them,"

Stone said.

The timing of the rescue, which unfolded at

night, appeared to be critical as the Stones'
crew members were able to see the light from
the dinghy bobbing in the darkness.

Rodriguez lost his boat and the group of

friends said they also lost their passports and
many of their possessions, but they said they
were just grateful to be alive.

The severity of the injuries sustained by the

whale were not immediately clear.

Kate Wilson, a spokeswoman for the

International Whaling Commission, told The
Washington Post, which first reported the
story, that there have been about 1,200
reports of whales and boats colliding since a
worldwide database launched in 2007.

Collisions causing significant damage are rare,

the Coast Guard told the outlet. It noted that
the last rescue attributed to impact from a
whale was the sinking of a 40-foot J-Boat in
2009 off Baja California. The crew in that
incident was rescued by a Coast Guard
helicopter.

One member of Raindancer's sailing crew,

Bianca Brateanu, said the more recent
incident, however harrowing, left her feeling
more confident in her survival skills.

“This experience made me realize how, you

know how capable we are, and how, how
skilled we are to manage and cope with
situations like this,” she said.

In an Instagram post, Rodriguez said he

would remember his boat "for the rest of my
life."

"What’s left of my home, the pictures on the

wall, belongings, pizza in the oven, cameras,
journals, all of it, will forever be preserved by
the sea," he said.

"As for me, I had a temporary mistrust in the

ocean. But I’m quickly realizing I’m still the
same person," Rodriguez wrote. “I often think
about the whale who likely lost its life, but is
hopefully ok. I'm not sure what my next move
will be. But my attraction to the sea hasn’t
been shaken."

Chantal Da Silva
!

Chantal Da Silva is a breaking news editor for NBC News

Digital based in London. 

Sam Brock

Sam Brock is an NBC News correspondent.

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