Tell Tale 2 crew return home

– drifted for 36 hours before rescued by Greek sailors

The 11 crewmembers of Tell Tale 2, the locally registered vessel that sunk en route to Santo Domingo last week, have returned home after they were rescued in mid-sea by crew of a Greek-registered vessel, which was on its way to Texas in the US.

This newspaper had previously reported that the men were rescued by the US Coast Guard, but crewmen yesterday clarified that it was in fact Greek seamen.

But even as they are thankful to be alive, Tell Tale 2 Captain Eugene Bailey and crewmember Hubert Corlette have complained of not being paid.

Contacted, owner of the vessel, Lennox Taylor, said this was indeed the case, but he said he had spoken to the crew before they returned to Guyana and the issue of payment will be addressed at a meeting with all crewmembers today.
Happy to be safe and back home: Eugene Bailey (left) and Hubert Corlette  yesterday.Tell Tale 2 was taking sand to the Dominican Republic when it encountered engine problems. Three generator breakdowns forced its crew, which included its owner, to abandon it. They drifted in a raft for 36 hours before they were rescued.

Recounting the ordeal to this newspaper yesterday, Bailey, who had only hours before returned from Jamaica, said that when the boat set sail, the engine had some initial problems. As it was placed under stress, it became faulty. He said later on, the boat’s three generators broke down one after the other. They put into port in Trinidad where they stayed for about two months while repairs were conducted and then set sail again for the intended destination where the vessel was scheduled to drop off a large quantity of sand.

“But then we started to take in water in the forward hatch and we broke down because the generator broke down. We had to stop the engine and then we ran into some rough seas. There was no manoeuvrability and water started seeping under the tarpaulin which covered the forward hatch,” he explained. The forward hatch is that area at the bottom of the ship where cargo is stored.

Bailey said the sand started to shift and it settled at the head of the forward hatch and the boat started going down.

“But we got some manoeuvrability later that day which only lasted for five hours. However, the seas were really rough and [the waves] started breaking rails and damaging parts of the ship… we realised that there was no possibility and so we decided to abandon here,” he said.

He said at that time distress calls were made and all vessels in the sea at that time, on the same frequency as Tell Tale 2 would have heard. The crew then saddled up all their safety equipment and moved over to the life draft and started drifting away from the Tell Tale 2, which they realised would be no more.

The distress signal went to the satellite and the US Coast Guard relayed it to the Search and Rescue headquarters in Puerto Rico.

“It was like an hour after that we heard the ship go down but we could not see it. [The next] 36 hours we spent drifting along the sea,” Bailey reminisced. He said while he wasn’t worried about being rescued, he pondered about how long it would take before they were found.

The Aegean Angel went to the rescue of the Guyanese crewmen on April 16, after they fired rockets, shone torches and signalled that they were in need of help. After being rescued, the crewmen were taken to Jamaica, arriving there on April 18 and remaining until they came home, some on Monday morning and the others last night.

As a sailor for over 35 years, Bailey said, he knew what to do. He said other crewmembers were also not strangers to such an experience. “We knew how to get about this and how to organise ourselves. We were confident that we would have been rescued. The only problem was how long we would have had to spend out there,” he said.

No pay
Though the experience has left a bitter taste in his mouth, the 60-year-old Bailey vows to continue as a boat captain, saying, “it’s all I know”.
Bailey and Corlette yesterday told Stabroek News that they had not been paid for the months they were on board. Bailey said he started working with Tell Tale 2 owner Taylor again in December last year after working with him twice before, and since then had not received any payment. This time he has worked with Taylor for a little over four months. Corlette said he was employed as an engineer aboard the vessel. They complained too of the company not making contact with their families even after learning of the incident.

“They were wrong in not making contact with our families. Maybe they feel they may want to ask questions which they were not prepared to answer,” Bailey said.

His wife, Bibi Bailey in an earlier interview with Stabroek News had said that she learnt of the incident through someone else and not the local office even though she contacted the secretary several times.

She insisted that the local office should have made contact with families at least to comfort them.

The men complained too of unsanitary conditions on board the vessel and said too that they were prepared to go to all ends to ensure that they received their monies, for which they have worked.

Taylor, who was also owner of Tell Tale 1, which sunk in the Essequibo River early last year, did not deny that his staff have not yet been paid. However, he told Stabroek News that before returning to Guyana, he had held a meeting with crewmembers and told them that the issue of payment would be sorted out once they had all returned home. He said he had no idea that payment was an issue until he heard about an article that appeared in the media in which relatives of the crewmen were saying that he had not paid them.

“It is not that I am denying that I didn’t pay them. I have a meeting with them tomorrow [today] and we will deal with that,” he said. Taylor assured this newspaper that he would pay the men. According to him, the men had never raised any concerns about money before and so he felt that the matter was settled until they returned home.

Donna Duncan, Taylor’s secretary, said when she received the call that the men were safe she started calling relatives and by the time she was down to the third call, she had received a call from Bailey’s wife who asked her what she had learnt. The woman admitted that at the time all she was able to say was that the men were safe and would be returning shortly. She said she admitted that she didn’t know anything much and would find out more soon and would have advised relatives accordingly. She said Bailey had called twice and she wasn’t able to tell her anything much because she too had no new information.

Bailey and Corlette also raised issues of insurance of the vessel as well as the qualifications of some crewmembers.
However, Taylor reserved comment on these matters.