MUSKEGO, Wis. — Mark Moriarty from Muskego set sail with his son-in-law, Geoff Stone and friends, on Stone’s boat, the Rolling Stones, in early March.
It was supposed to be a routine trip across the Pacific Ocean with friends and family from Wisconsin.
“A 21-day CrossFit on the sailboat, which I guess people do all the time,” said Moriarty.
However, halfway through the trip they got a message from a friend talking about four people who needed to be rescued after a whale sank their boat. The four had been sailing from the Galápagos Islands to French Polynesia.
The Wisconsinites quickly changed course and started the rescue mission.
“We responded immediately and said, 'okay' and changed directions. It was a minor change. We took off, throttled up the engines and we were flying to go get these guys, but we were 65 miles away. This quick response rescue took us nine hours to get to them,” explained Moriarty.
The crew aboard the sunken Raindancer had just minutes to gather supplies and escape into their lifeboat and dinghy. Moriarty credits the crew for their preparedness.
“So, we took our time and finally got to them and then it was a question of how do we do the rescue because we’ve never done this before, but the crew on Raindancer were so prepared,” said Moriarty.
After the rescue, they ate a meal, shared supplies, stories and then headed back to land. They arrived on an island in the French Polynesian nine days after the rescue.
The whole event turned into a life-changing trip for Moriarty.
“We met some really nice people and got to know these people and now created this friendship that we will probably endure forever,” said Moriarty.