Canadian sailor James 'Ted' Rutledge rescued after catamaran sinks in Indian Ocean

In the dead of night, in one of the most remote parts of the Indian Ocean, 70-year-old Canadian sailor James 'Ted' Rutledge grabbed his torch as his alarm system sounded.

He was roughly 1,000 kilometres from land, south-east of Christmas Island and north of Western Australia.

As he shone his torch at the starboard hull, he was met with every sailor's worst fear.

Floorboards were lifting as water flooded in through the half-metre-wide escape hatch.

The hatch — retrofitted after a 2020 safety recall on the French-made Lagoon 42 — appeared to have detached on its own.

It took just 10 minutes for Mr Rutledge to realise his boat would sink.

"The more water that came through, the more water was going to come through, because the [window] sill just kept getting lower [in the water]," Mr Rutledge told 7.30.

"By the time I got out of there, everything was floating — cushions, toys, stuffed animals, clothes and baskets and things like that."

Doing that was not simple. His inflatable life raft was submerged and not usable.

A second life-saving plan had to be formulated as Mr Rutledge scrambled to escape in a dinghy that was kept suspended between the parallel hulls.

But the dinghy too had become stuck and Mr Rutledge had to cut it loose with a knife, but in doing so his hand became clamped in part of the boat.

His situation had suddenly become more perilous as his life went full circle.

"I remember saying: 'This is not the night I'm going to die'," he told 7.30.

Fortunately for him, a wave forced his hand free, and he was able to cast off in the dinghy.

A lonely night

As relief hit him, so did the realisation of a fresh problem: he may be adrift for a long time.

Almost immediately before the catamaran began taking on water, Mr Rutledge had issued a position and safety update to his brother Kelly Thomas in Canada.

Sending updates to loved ones every six hours was something Mr Rutledge had agreed to as part of his bid to circumnavigate the globe.

He was now facing a period of being truly alone.

Believing his Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) had floated inside the sinking boat, he figured his missing WhatsApp updates might trigger his rescue far sooner than the beacon would, if it had activated at all.

"All somebody had to do was say 'wait a minute, this is not right'."

With the catamaran settled mostly underwater at a 45-degree angle, Mr Rutledge tied his dinghy to one of the mast stays so as not to drift away from the more visible boat.

He covered himself in a poncho and settled in for a night without sleep, as he feared the catamaran would sink and pull him under.

As the sun rose, he calculated how long he could survive without supplies and made plans to dive towards the mostly submerged catamaran to try and free gallons of potable water.

Canadians raise the alarm

While he desperately fought for survival in the vast ocean, back in his native Canada the alarm was being raised.

Mr Thomas said a concerned friend of Ted's called him from Ontario.

"She had been trying to contact him through telephone and texting," Mr Thomas told 7.30.

Surmising his brother would not miss a text unless something was wrong — given he had "nothing else to do" — he called the Australian Marine Safety Authority (AMSA).

They could not raise Mr Rutledge via radar.

Mr Thomas also called Ted's son Griffin Rutledge, who was asleep in bed in his Vancouver home, and had messaged his father in the past 24 hours.

"I'd just been talking to my dad," Griffin Rutledge said.

"[My uncle] just said 'your dad's OK' but the boat sank."

With radar contact having failed, AMSA Principal Advisor on Search and Rescue Hemi Manaena became involved as his team launched a rescue jet.

He said there were multiple challenges.

"The last known position that we were provided was about 1,000km east of Christmas Island and 1,000km from the Australian mainland.

"The conditions forecast were for some quite challenging waves."

However, it took just a couple of hours before the rescue jet sighted Mr Rutledge on his dinghy.

AMSA dropped him a life raft containing an emergency beacon, radio, food and water. Via radio, Mr Rutledge was told to wait for rescue.

The rescue of a pants-less man

That rescue came from the HMAS Supply. The replenishment oiler was sailing in the area, and Mr Rutledge was just 70 miles astern.

The ship launched its MH60 'Romeo' Seahawk helicopter to the location shared by AMSA and the Canadian was winched to safety after 15 hours floating at sea,

Commander Kylie Turnbull told 7.30 Mr Rutledge was "very quiet" when he arrived on deck without his pants, which he had lost during the ordeal.

"Our aircraft flew 155 miles back to that position and then conducted the winch rescue, returning back to supply, landing on our deck. And we received him here on board here in the hangar," Commander Turnbull said.

Mr Rutledge was amazed that Navy crew members already knew his name and says they will always have his gratitude.

"I was worried that I was letting people down if I died," Mr Rutledge said.

"And for the [Royal Australian Navy] crew and the ship that went out of its way to save me and sent the chopper."

Mr Rutledge has now headed to South Africa, which was his destination when disaster struck on a trip that had seen him sail approximately 3,000 nautical miles and visit 33 countries.

While he says he has no regrets — having safely navigated around cyclones in Fiji and waterspouts in Tahiti — he says the safety incident that left his life in danger is a warning to others to make sure every aspect of their boat is safe.

"I didn't misnavigate. I didn't run into a shoal or another boat. It was just that those windows weren't built well enough to stay in."

Following the 2020 safety recall campaign, Mr Rutledge had the affected escape hatch retrofitted in Panama, securing the Plexiglass hatch window.

"Maybe in retrospect, I should have had them fibre-glassed in, but you spend that much money on a boat and you think it's being built to the best of all possible instances," he said.

"The components they used were just inferior."

As for what happens to the at least $700,000 catamaran, Mr Rutledge says it will have to be sunk to the depths. He doesn't think his brother or son will mind.