Four Men Survive Hurricane Allen in a Givens Buoy Raft

Four experienced offshore sailors were delivering a 30-ton sailing ketch to the Bahamas from Florida. Hurricane Allen caught them off guard, pounding the ketch with 35 foot seas and steadily increasing winds. The boat struggled in the breaking swells, and finally gave up its fight. The crew abandoned ship into their Givens Buoy Raft, which had been damaged while deploying. Once inside the raft, the stabilization system kept the raft upright despite wind gusts of 190 knots (documented by the rescuing vessel) and breaking swells of 35 feet.

The survivors' account that the raft was at times buried under 8 feet of water by waves breaking on them from all sides, but the raft never capsized. Even when heeled to 110 degrees from horizontal by the incredible sea forces and all four occupants thrown against the canopy, the raft always re-righted itself.

Ten minutes after entering their Givens Raft, silence befell the survivors - the seas calmed and the winds subsided to a light breeze. From the door of the raft, the men saw stars at the top of a massive cylinder of clouds. They had entered the eye of the hurricane! Their respite was soon to end however, as the back side of the storm rapidly approached. Again within the eye wall of the hurricane - the most intense part of the storm - the Givens raft rode enormous swells and continued to protect the survivors from the incredible winds and driving spray.

48 hours after they entered their raft, the four were sighted by a Norweigan tanker, which had also been through the storm. The crew of the ship were completely amazed that the four sailors had survived the storm at all, let alone in an inflatable life raft.