Eight guest and five crew members were aboard the Rip Curl Quest 1 and later saved when the legendary Rip Curl Search ship sank in the middle of the night.
An engine leak during the middle of the night has left the legendary Rip Curl Quest 1 at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. The boat was on its third day of a trip through the Mentawais. “We were surfing Lance’s Left yesterday with a lot of people, and we wanted to go surf some uncrowded waves, so we decided to go to The Lighthouse,” Pete Nevins, one of the Quest 1’s guests told Surfing Life. “We got underway from Lance’s just after supper last, and we were supposed to be motoring all night. Then at about 2:30 in the morning, one of my buddies came and woke me up to see if I could take a look at what was going on.”
What Nevins walked into was an engine room with three crew members rigging pumps to get rid of water pouring into the ship. He estimates they kept with that plan to save the ship for around 90 minutes before deciding it was time to leave the vessel. With most of the guests and crew on rafts, the last of the crew tossed surfboards and equipment off the boat and into the ocean in order to leave a trail of debris. Nevin said the scariest part from that point was floating around not knowing when a rescue would come. Fortunately, the Ratu Motu and the Indies Trader III found everybody around 9:30 am that morning. Martin Daly, who was captaining the Indies Trader III, also happens to be the man who built the Quest 1.
“This is only the third day out here,” Nevin says. “It was one of those things that happened so quickly, and of course it has to happen in the middle of the night when everyone’s groggy. We actually watched the boat sink. I somehow packed my bag and put my GoPro in there, and filmed the thing sinking. It’s kinda dark, but there’s footage…”
Editor’s Note: Check back for footage of the GoPro footage when it is released and available.
