SURVIVE THE SAVAGE SEA BY DOUGAL ROBERTSON IN SOUTH AFRICA

 At 10 am on 15 June 1972, the 19-ton, 43-foot schooner Lucette, sailed by a Scottish ex-farmer and his family, was attacked by killer whales in the Pacific, and sank in 60 seconds. What happened after that is the subject of one of the most astounding survival stories ever to be told.  In an inflatable rubber raft, with a 9-foot fiberglass dinghy to tow it, Dougal Robertson and his crew of five - his wife, 18-year-old son and 12-year-old twin boys, and a student friend - decided to make for the coast of Costa Rica, 1000 miles and an estimated 50 days away.  They had emergency rations of food and water for only three days, a handful of random items salvaged from Lucette, and no maps or compass or instruments of any kind.  Steering by the sun and stars, they set course for the Doldrums. A ship passed near them by failed to see their flares, leaving them to face death from thirst, starvation and exhaustion.  But they did not die.  Their raft sank under them and still they did not die.  Cramped together in their tiny dinghy with only six inches of freeboard, they clawed a space for themselves in the savage ecology of the ocean, on constant alert against 20-foot waves, marauding sharks, and numerous other hazards, through rain, storm, calm and equatorial heat.  With knowledge as their primary weapon, love as their bond, courage and self-sacrifice became a way of life, as mile after mile these six humans in the vast reaches of the Pacific refused to admit defeat. Hard cover, fairly good condition, with dust jacket.  The book shows some signs of wear, and foxing.  223 pages.