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Luke Hartley is currently travelling across the Pacific Ocean after he embarked on his solo journey last year, amid a personal quest and thirst for adventure on the high seas
Sailor tells how he ‘almost died’ sailing into Tonga
A man sailing alone across the Pacific Ocean shared a harrowing update of how he “almost died” after he suffered a blow to the head that knocked him unconscious.
American solo sailor Luke Hartley, who goes by sailing_songbird on Instagram, shared the concerning update in a post uploaded to the platform on December 12. In the video, Luke said he was hit in the face by his sailboat boom, which extends out from the mast, at “an incredibly high speed” while he was about a mile out from the nation of Tonga.
The impact swept former music teacher Luke off his feet and left him draped unconscious for a time over the lifelines of his 27ft-long sailboat Songbird. The clip, which Luke said was very difficult for him to watch and can be viewed on his Instagram.
The clip, showed him calling for help as part of a mayday where he expressed concerns he was about to pass out. Fearing he would not be able to complete an anchorage alone, he requested assistance from nearby sailors.
Luke said the incident left him in shock and “in no way capable” of completing the sail to get into the Vava’u island group in Tonga without an engine. He believed he was haemorrhaging “since all I could see was green”.
Thankfully, after an hour, Luke managed to get the support of sailors who helped him get to Tonga. Luke praised the “boundless” support he received and despite in hindsight viewing his mayday call as unnecessary, the sailors told him he did the right thing “given the severity of my head trauma,” although thankfully it did not have a long-term impact.
Since being shared online, the video has received more than 39,380 likes. The incident happened as Luke continues his journey across the world’s largest ocean.
Luke said he typically uses a boom preventer, which takes force out of an accidental gybe – a changing of course by swinging the sail across a following wind.
“I always sail with a preventer but in this case, [I] had released it moments before my accident to perform a controlled gybe,” Luke told The Mirror. “My blunder was when I looked behind me to watch the whales flanking Songbird and in that moment, I lost concentration and didn’t notice the boat go into a crash gybe.”
“In some ways, this accident has made me totally rethink safety on the water, and in other ways, nothing has changed,” Luke continued to tell The Mirror. “As far as procedure goes, there isn’t anything I need to adjust to ensure my safety on the water, other than my continued concentration. Maintaining one’s concentration sounds easy but at the end of a two week passage alone, you are feeling pretty run down and drained.
“Every time someone steps into a car, they take on the responsibility that an accident could happen, the same goes with sailing. At the end of the day, what happened was simply an accident and I am incredibly lucky to be able to walk away from it without any long term damage.”
Luke set out for the open sea and started documenting his journey on social media after feeling out of step with his teaching career and what he said was a poorly supported school in the US.
Since setting out in from Seattle in October last year, Luke has documented his journey on social media and has accumulated an impressive 922,000 followers on Instagram alone. He previously told People he intended to circumnavigate the world in a journey that could take as long as five years.
He revealed to The Mirror his desire for adventure came after completing an unfulfilling teaching contract. He then went about purchasing a boat and has not looked back since setting sail.
“My original reason for going to sea and to sail around the world was in pursuit of a fulfilling lifestyle,” he added. “Struggling while teaching in an under supported school, in an under supported district, in a country that won’t value education was draining the life from me and, despite not having any sailing experience, I longed for the life I saw portrayed by ocean sailors on YouTube. The grand irony is that now I’m one of them.”
But he also offered “a word of both warning and encouragement” to people considering taking up the thirst for adventure on the high seas. Luke added: “Cruising/sailing will take everything you have, no matter what you have, it will take all of it. If hearing and truly understanding that, doesn’t deter you, then you are in for an incredibly adventurous and fulfilling life.”
