Exclusive: We made it! Record-breaker in ocean drama

Man o’ war stings, a dangerous quest to rescue a ‘cursed’ abandoned boat, engine failure, a brush with a giant freighter, water shortages and getting stranded in the Atlantic — it could be the pitch for a Hollywood blockbuster. 

But it’s the real-life story of two intrepid researchers who on Monday finally made it to Bermuda after 73 days of adventure.

Matt Rutherford, 32 — who last year became the first person to sail non-stop around the Americas — and scientist Nicole Trenholm, 27, from Annapolis, Maryland, tied up their boat Ault in St George’s with palpable relief.

Their priority is to fix the engine that broke after they used dodgy diesel in a bid to rescue a deserted 48ft swan boat, whose owner had promised them $45,000 if they could bring it back to Bermuda. 

‘So…,” he says, before proceeding to tell the Bermuda Sun some serious tales of the high seas after 73 days out on the ocean.

“He’s a little delirious,” chips in marine scientist Nicole Trenholm, the other half of the couple that make up Ocean Research Project.

Rutherford, 32, last year became the first person to sail non-stop around the Americas solo. It took him 309 days and is, he assures me, another story.

This project saw the couple head to the Atlantic gyre, between the Azores and Bermuda, to collect samples of micro plastics.

After sailing 21 days and 2,200 miles to get into position, they spent a further 26 days, day and night, collecting data every 50 miles.

It was all going so smoothly. Then, on day 48, things got really interesting.

An Irishman promised them $45,000 to rescue his 48ft swan boat (worth approximately a $1m), and haul it back to Bermuda.

Having come across the abandoned vessel, they had contacted the owner and his offer presented an opportunity to seriously boost their research programme.

‘Voodoo curse’

Rutherford said: “We were just having dinner on the back of our boat and Nikki looks over and says ‘hey, there’s a sail boat over there in the distance’.

“It seemed like it had some sort of voodoo curse of some sort because the longer we were attached to it or it stayed attached to us, the more things kept breaking. It got ridiculous. I was swimming around under boats, it was crazy, waves were building up trying to flip my little kayak, the bottom fell out of the dinghy.

“We only had 50 gallons of diesel when we found the boat so we had enough to get to Bermuda more or less but it’s pretty slow going trying to tow a boat, which weighed about twice as much as we did.

“So it was quite an ordeal just towing it along. We thought if we could get another 50 or so gallons we could tow this thing in.

“We had benign weather so we could have done it if we had another 50 gallons and we would have got $45,000 for doing it – and we’d be drinking the finest scotch right now, although Guinness is good enough for me!”

The extra fuel was provided by a huge freighter which, in good faith, gave them what diesel they had.

“So we pulled up alongside this freighter for an hour,” Rutherford continues. “We were like 10 feet away, which you never want to do, by this wall of mass steel.

“They were lowing the lines down to Nikki, who was pulling all these jerry jugs on board. We both had no idea that the diesel was bad diesel. God knows how long it had been sitting in this thing. So we leave and everything is great and wonderful. Then the rpm starts fluttering around a little bit and the second I backed down the throttle the engine fails completely. The fuel was so bad it broke the injector pump. Once that happens it’s toast.

Another ordeal

“There’s no way to rebuild that in the ocean and there’s nothing we can do about it. 

“We tried for about two days to try to get the engine started in the other boat. So we had a whole ordeal with that. We got rammed by the boat at one point. It was just hectic. In the end we had to cut it free, it was just getting too crazy.

“The people on the freighter were great people — no hard feelings an’ all. But now I’ve learned never, ever get fuel from a freighter!”

For Trenholm, at least the scientific aspect of the trip had already been successful.

She said: “The important thing is we completed the research. It went smooth for way too long! 

“The swan boat was like this little present in the distance — all we had to do was bring it back to Bermuda and everything just went…”

Rutherford added: “We were trying to play it safe, we had all these safeguards but the bottom line is the freighter fuel killed the engine. I thought we might be able to get the other boat’s engine started and it could tow us, which would have been kind of funny but it had been floating for five months.

“The guy drained the battery too low so he couldn’t start the engine.” 

Just the two of us... 

For Nicole, this was the first time she had ever been at sea for such a length of time.

Matt, at least, had 309 days of solo record-breaking sailing around the Americas to fall back on.

But despite all the drama experience and worked undertaken, the couple seem to be the ideal team.

Matt: “Nikki did very well. For me it’s still a long time don’t get me wrong  under the circumstances but at least I had that experience, I had done several transatlantics before but Nikki didn’t have any of this type of experience going in.”

Time to panic

Nicole: “When I had the science to do, my mind was very active but once we got to just bobbing around I’m like ‘okay…’

“I am the panicky one because everything is new for me. When he was going up the mast, and just the whole trying to tame that swan boat and manage it.

“When it turned against us and started to come after us, I swear the boat was trying to drown him. That’s when I was, like, I’ve got to be awesome now!

“When we went up to the cargo ship I knew I had to be cool about this giant ship, grabbing these jugs.”

Matt: “It’s definitely nice to have someone around. 

“Single-handing, I did 42,000 miles alone in the last five years. There’s something I like about being alone at sea, although to an extent.

“ Being alone at sea is very different to being alone at port. When you’re alone in the ocean, there is no loneliness because there’s no-one to talk to. The common idea of loneliness is on land when you’re surrounded by people.

Burned out

“So there are aspects of sailing alone I enjoy but at the same I’m pretty burned out on it. It was fun to do for a while but I could not do this sort of thing by myself.”

Nicole: “I want to hear him complain about  how many jellies we caught this time and tell him ‘hun – are you going to make dinner or am I going to make dinner?

Matt: It’s really nice having Nikki on board.

Nicole: “I’m glad to hear it!”