Never Give Up

Very recently a friend of mind posted a question on FB “Have you ever known a person who would never give up?”  I quickly bashed out a comment about a man that I knew who wouldn’t give up and it cost him near everything.  The memory of that man, has been burnt into my brain for years and since has caused me to withdraw a little where I felt someone could not succeed yet they seemed to have undying determination to push forward.  The truth of the matter is that man did not fail he succeeded in trying. 

 

I just read a story of two men who didn’t give up in spite of dramatic and impossible odds.  One is Raphael Dinelli a single handed sailor in the 1996 Vendee’ Globe race, a race around the world under sail alone.  Raphael was overwhelmed in the southern ocean by a storm carrying Hurricane Force winds and 60’ waves that bashed his boat which ultimately sank in one of the most desolate places on the planet, he shouldn’t have been in the race, he wasn’t able to raise the funds in time to get ready to make a 500 mile test run of himself and the equipment to qualify, instead he ran the race as an outsider.  The storm had swept his life raft off the boat and he stood on the sinking hull of the boat certain he would die when an assisting plane dropped him two life rafts, he stepped inside moments before the final bit of his boat sank to the ocean floor.  Huddled in the life raft 24 hours without food or water in sub freezing temperatures wet to the bone he had a message that another sailor was 10 hours away and headed in his direction, every minute of his life from then on was a battle to survive certain every minute he would die.

 

The other sailor was a Brit by the name of Pete Goss.  Pete was another, shouldn’t have been there entrant, he raised all the money himself at times sleeping on subway platforms between appointments in distant cities with major corporations looking for sponsorship.  On the dock the day of the race he nearly had his entrance into the race denied for failure to raise the last funds to participate, a friend threw down his Platinum Card at the last minute to make it happen.  Pete was in the same storm 160 miles to windward barely holding on himself when he received the distress signal, he knew that turning towards Raphael would almost certainly mean his own death but decided to turn into the 70 mile and hour winds and huge seas and head towards his fellow competitor because if he didn’t make it he would ‘succeed in trying’ at the very least.

 

-          Close to the wind by Pete Goss