My sister's months at sea after whale sunk boat

The first Pat Brewin knew about her sister and brother-in-law being shipwrecked at sea in a dinghy and rubber life raft - tied together for nearly four months - was when she was watched the News at 10.

"I said 'oh my God - that's our Maralyn being helped up the gangway'.

"I can see her little legs now, they were like little sticks when they were carried into this Korean boat," she said.

Maralyn and Maurice Bailey's boat sank when it was hit by a whale in the Pacific Ocean on 4 March 1973, and after their food ran out, they made hooks from safety pins and caught fish, small sharks, seabirds and turtles to eat, and collected rainwater to drink.

After a book about the survival of the Derby couple, who have since died, was named the best title of last year, Pat says it was her sister - who could not swim - that kept the pair going.

Earlier this month, the book - called Maurice and Maralyn: An Extraordinary True Story of Shipwreck, Survival and Love - by Sophie Elmhirst, won the £30,000 Gold Prize at the Nero Book Awards.

In 1966, Maralyn - who worked in a tax office - suggested to her husband they sell their house, in Allestree, buy a boat and live on board.

The pair - who both grew up in Normanton - bought their 31ft yacht called Auralyn and set sail for New Zealand from Southampton on 28 June 1972, with Maralyn aged 31, and Maurice aged 39.

Pat told the BBC she would regularly receive postcards from her older sister.

The 79-year-old said: "On one of them she said 'don't worry - you won't hear from me for a bit because we're crossing the Galapagos', so we never gave it another thought."

At the end of February 1973, Maurice and Maralyn - who had married in 1963 - left Panama for the Galapagos Islands, a journey which should have taken about 10 days.

But on day six - 4 March - the ship sank, 250 miles from their destination.

The couple were left fighting for survival for 118 days on a 9ft-long dinghy and a life raft, which was 4ft 6in in diameter, tied together.

They drifted about 1,500 miles in a mainly north-westwards direction before they were rescued by a Korean fishing boat.

Pat, who was talking to the BBC from her home in Chaddesden, in Derby, said Maralyn could not swim.

She said: "I remember saying to her 'what are you going to do if you got into difficulties or into the sea?' She said 'I'll be fine'.

"And she would knowing Maralyn - she would find some way out of it."

Pat said: "I think Maurice gave up. She was the strong one, definitely."

She added: "I know how frightening it was.

"One night they had tied the rafts together and she was looking through a peep hole and two eyes were looking at her - and it was a huge whale.

"She just sat there thinking, 'this is the end, one flip'. She said [the whale] just stared and stared, and then she didn't hear a ripple."

Talking about their diet of survival, Pat said the couple, who later became vegetarian, had to eat everything raw.

She said: "I remember them saying to her when she was rescued, they could not understand how her nails were still perfect.

"For every fish she caught, she used to save the eyes and call them Smarties [after the chocolate sweet] - so they had a 'Smartie' at night.

"Apparently around fishes' eyes is all vitamins, so she never had scurvy or anything."

Maurice and Maralyn - who were sitting in water up to waist deep - would try to get the attention of passing ships, but without success.

Pat said: "They'd used all their flares, the jackets and I think they sort of resigned themselves - I think Maurice had more - that they wouldn't make it."

A total of seven ships passed them - Maurice, who had worked at Bemrose Booth printers in Derby, wrote in a first-hand account.

He said some were "within, half to three-quarters of a mile away, but none saw or heard our signals for help".

"We were troubled by sharks buffeting the raft and whales blowing close and showering us with water," he added.

In an interview with the BBC - broadcast in 2014 - Maurice, who later died in 2018, said: "I have always put the credit down to Maralyn that she saved me that I wouldn't have survived at all on my own, or if she was relying on me to save her, she wouldn't have had a very good outcome."

He added: "She was the guiding light in everything we did."

Maurice wrote in a first-hand account that they could only eat small amounts when they were rescued because they were too weak, and initially just had milk, then eggs, soup and butter.

Moving was also very painful for them, and at first they could only crawl before they began to "hobble".

The fishing boat took the them to Honolulu where they received medical treatment, and were also greeted by a lot of media attention.

Journalist Ivor Davies, who was working for the Daily Express and saw the couple arrive, told the BBC: "This young couple stepped off a Korean fishing boat looking like they had just come out of a concentration camp.

"They were emaciated and hardly able to walk."

Pat added: "I don't know how she did survive, I really don't."