Shipwrecked for 13 days on a coral reef

By Murray Burt

I was singing when I went below at 4 a.m. after my two-hour turn at the wheel. I stowed a large chunk of “Best Irish Fruit Cake” and flopped down on the settee to catch a nap until 6. By this time hours at the wheel and the effects of the sun and wind of the previous days’ sailing had begun to tell. It was only minutes after my head touch the settee that I was a sleep.
A crash somewhere about me brought me to half consciousness. Seconds later there was a more violent crack. The whole vessel trembled and lurched drunkenly. Commotion descended. Above the racket I heard Don yell: “Hell. We’re aground Murray. We’re aground.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Murray Burt
• Release date: Jun 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476272917

Murray Burt

Murray Burt, 78, is a compulsive writer having retired as a newspaper editor and writer for 40 years. He started as a journalism cadet in New Zealand, moved to a job on Fleet Street, and before shipping to Canada in sailboats via the Mediterranean and a trans-Atlantic sloop delivery to West Indies, fore-decking and charter boat skippering.When he was hired at The Globe and Mail in 1967, friends he had sailed with in the Virgin Islands (where he was wrecked for 13 days) regularly pressed him to crew for them. Ultimately, though city editor, he was leaned on to become the paper’s specialty sailing writer.In 1980 he was posted as managing editor to the Winnipeg Free Press.Since leaving newspapers he has written Winnipeg’s Ladies from Hell a centenary history of The Queen’s Own Highlanders of Canada; The Intimate Sea. a sailing upstairs-downstairs novel of upper class cruising in the Med; plus a personal account of his coral reef wrecking and two books of poems (one light-hearted on “wicked” children. the other on romantic Commonwealth islands). Both are awaiting a publisher’s blessing.

Book preview

The Wreck of Electra

© 2006 Murray Burt

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords License Statement

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Skipper's preface on The wreck of Electra

The Wreck of Electra

Author's note

Skipper’s preface on

The wreck of Electra

Fifty years ago this month (July 2006) as skipper of the 44-foot yawl Electra, at 0410 hours on the 4th of July, with me at the helm, we hit a reef somewhere in the Virgin Islands. This is that story, written shortly after the misadventure, by my Kiwi friend and shipmate, Murray Burt.

This introduction to the story, the two of us agree, has the value of a perspective that looks back half a century on a youthful adventure. In the 1951 TransPacific Yacht Race, I had sailed as bowman aboard this new Luders Naval Academy yawl. Built in Japan with the finest materials and workmanship, she was gold plated, a fine yacht with superb wood carvings in the main saloon and custom bronze castings on the companion ladder with the word Electra on every step.

In 2006 dollars, Electra would cost upwards of $600,000, custom built in all teak woods. Electra, to the best of our knowledge, is still racing in the Miami, Fla. area.

How did the wreck occur? The first answer is poor judgment, human error. I had made the same voyage 12 times previously aboard other sailing vessels, serving as skipper-navigator and had entered Round Rock Passage on the nose. This fateful time, we were about 22 miles north of my intended course. Three factors were key to our near disaster.

First, we carried an extra 250-pound cast iron fly wheel aboard, secured below decks but within four feet of our ship’s magnetic compass.

Second, we were