The only woman aboard the stricken 42-foot catamaran sailboat named Tholile, which was towed into South Africa’s Durban Harbour on Tuesday, said she kept cracking jokes to lift the spirits of her five colleagues.
Relieved to be back on dry land, Kaylee Featherstone, 20, said she tried to keep the humor flowing to distract her colleagues from the ordeal, despite suffering from seasickness.
“I wanted all of us to laugh because there was nothing else we could do while waiting for help,” she told the local press. “I knew that if one of us panicked, we would all panic, but fortunately that did not happen.
Skipper Greg Challis said the engine failed amid winds of between 30 and 35 knots and the waves had grown upwards of 13 feet – “big enough to break the boat,” he said.
