Cruising World - May 2016

106

A

few years ago, while

setting sail from

Seattle aboard the

64-foot yacht Ocean Watch on a

28,000-nautical-mile “vertical

circumnavigation” of North

and South America via the

Northwest Passage and Cape

Horn, skipper Mark Schrader

gathered our crew in the cock-

pit and said: “OK, I know this

is unpleasant, but we’re headed

for some pretty remote waters

and anything can happen, so

I have to ask the question: If

we’re weeks from shore and

something bad happens to

you, what should we do with

your body?”

Cheery, right?

I’d just fi nished reading the

biography of the late Doors

frontman Jim Morrison,

No One Here Gets Out Alive

— which, you know, unfor-

tunately is true — and had

been giving the topic some

thought. So I was the fi rst to

answer: “Commit me to the

sea with a big rum chaser, and

then pass around the bottle.”

And most of my fellow ship-

mates had the same general

idea. But not Mark.

“If there’s any possible way to

get me back on land, do it,” he

said, steadfast in his desire for

a proper burial in a grassy plot.

“It’s too cold, dark and lonely

out here.” The mere notion

made him literally shiver.

Thankfully, it turned out to

be nothing more than a theo-

retical discussion. But in early

March, I was reminded of the

exchange after a deceased solo

sailor was discovered adrift

on his dismasted 40-foot

yacht, Sayo, of the coast of the

Philippines. In and of itself,

that would have been a bizarre

story. But what sent it into the

realm of a Twilight Zone episode

was the fact that the late single-

hander had apparently been

dead quite some time, and his

mummifi ed remains were still

hunched over the chart table,

looking relaxed and peaceful, as

if he were laboring over a log-

book entry of lat/long, weather

and sea state.

Perhaps predictably, a photo

of the grisly scene was posted

on the Internet and immedi-

ately went viral. If you some-

how haven’t seen it, think long

and hard before Googling the

image, which is one of those

things you can’t delete from

your mental hard drive once it’s

in there. Just trust me, OK?

As it turned out, Sayo was

boarded not once, but twice,

before the entire tragic tale was

unveiled. The crew of LMAX

Exchange, competing on the leg

from Australia to Vietnam in

the Clipper 2015-16 Round the

World Yacht Race, fi rst came

across the stricken vessel in

late January. After a crewman

swam over and made the awful

discovery, the team notifi ed

the U.S. Coast Guard in Guam,

reported its fi ndings, and was

subsequently released to con-

tinue racing. At the time, only

a brief mention of the incident

was reported on the event’s

website, but with absolutely

none of the gory details.

(Later, when all the facts

emerged, LMAX Exchange

and the Clipper organization

released this statement: “As a

team we found comfort that he

was found and that peace will

be given to his friends and fam-

ily who have been looking for

him. ... As a company, we also

felt it was inappropriate to cre-

ate a news story out of such

tragic circumstances, plus the

experience was quite distressing

for the crewmember who went

aboard, who does not wish to

publicly talk about it.” Hats of

to the classy, restrained crew of

LMAX Exchange.)

But Sayo continued her

lonely voyage and soon after

was spotted by a pair of

Philippine fi shermen, who

alerted the local authorities.

It wasn’t long before the Daily

Mirror, a British tabloid news-

paper, obtained the aforemen-

tioned police photograph and

published it online under a

mouthful of a headline: “Ghost

yacht horror as mummifi ed

body of adventurer found sit-

ting at desk of vessel drifting at

sea for years.”

From papers on board that

were recovered by the Clipper

racing boat, who turned them

over to German authorities,

the sailor in question was iden-

tifi ed as a 59 -year-old German

national named Manfred

Bajorat, who’d been divorced in

2008 (his ex-wife, who’d been

sailing with him before their

split, had died a year later);

he hadn’t been heard from, as

near as anyone could tell, since

2009. No weapon was found
      on board, and it appeared he’d
      perished from natural causes.
      According to the news account,
      “dry ocean winds, hot tempera-
      tures and the salty air helped
      preserve his body.”
      It’s hard to fi nd a silver lining
      here, but I reckon there is one.
      After all, there’s something to
      be said for checking out with
      your (sea) boots on, doing
      something you love to do. And
      you’ve got to hand it to Bajorat,
      who took it one step further.
      Not even death stopped him.
      He just kept sailing.

Herb McCormick is Cruising

World’s executive editor.

When boarders went below

on the 40-footer Sayo, they

made a grisly discovery.

may 2016

cruisingworld.com

DEAD RECKONING

Though it’s hard to find a silver lining here, there’s something to be said for checking

out with your (sea) boots on, doing something you love to do.

BY HERB McCORMICK

Off Watch

CLIPPER ROUND THE WORLD YACHT RACE