Guitarist once saved hundreds of people on a sinking yacht

In 1991, Moss Hills, from Zimbabwe, was a performance guitarist on the luxury yacht Oceanos. While sailing off the coast of South Africa, the Oceanos, built by France and owned by Greece, encountered a terrible incident.

Early on August 3, 1991, strong winds and heavy rain caused Oceanos’ voyage to the port city of Durban, South Africa, to be delayed several times. However, when the weather showed no sign of improving, the captain finally decided to sail. Oceanos cruise, with 581 guests and crew, set sail in conditions of winds of 74 km/h, waves 9m high.

Moss and his wife Tracy, the onboard bassist, began to realize the severity of the storm over dinner. The staff on the train served the food smoothly, but that day they dropped the tray a few times.

The Moss and his wife, both in their thirties, used to host parties at the deck pool, but that day the party was moved indoors. Moss had to brace herself, trying to keep her balance while playing guitar as the ship struggled through the storm. “The storm was getting worse and worse,” Moss exclaimed.

Tracy decided to go to the couple’s cabin and arrange an emergency bag just in case. “She was just leaving when all of a sudden the lights went off,” Moss said.

None of the sailors on board showed up to give instructions. Although a person who did not panic easily, Moss could not avoid feeling insecure. “Imagine you are on a ship in the middle of the ocean in the dark, facing a terrible storm,” he said. “I feel my stomach tighten.”

When the emergency lights came on, Moss went to the tea room to check on the instrument on the stage and found the microphone and stand falling all over the place. Then he realized the constant noise of the engine was gone. The ship lost power and was slowing down.

The 153-meter-long ship began to be attacked by raging waves. Moss described Oceanos as being repeatedly struck by a giant hammer.

Panicked guests began to flock into the tea room, where potted plants, ashtrays, tables and chairs were scattered. Everyone had to sit on the deck as the ship wobbled wildly from port to starboard.

About an hour passed, and the atmosphere in the room became more and more tense. Moss picked up an acoustic guitar and started singing with several other artists, trying to keep everyone calm. But then he realized the ship was leaning to one side.

“Something bad happened,” Moss told his wife. “I’ll go find out.”

Clinging to the handrail, Moss and Julian, magicians from Yorkshire, England, made their way through the darkness below deck. They hear voices in different languages. The sailors on the ship were running in a hurry, some carrying bags, some wearing life jackets and getting wet.

“Everybody had a panicked look on their face,” Moss said. “We tried to inquire about the situation but got no response, as if we didn’t exist.”

Julian and Moss descended to the engine room, the lowest part of the ship. “We were below sea level in the dark, no one was there,” Moss said. “Normally, even when a ship docks, someone must be here to look after it.”

The thick metal doors in the engine room were tightly closed, acting as a safety barrier to prevent water from moving from one compartment to another in the event of a flood. “Behind those doors, however, there seems to be a huge body of water.”

The Oceanos is sinking.

Back in the tea room, there was still no announcement of the situation. Moss found the yacht’s cheerleader, who said the captain had vowed to abandon the ship. “We discovered a lifeboat had left the ship with a lot of crew,” Moss said.

Moss and the others did not know how to evacuate the yacht, nor how to deploy lifeboats hanging high on the deck along each side of the hull. There is also no one around with the ability and experience to do this.

They began trying to lower the lifeboats on starboard to deck, but did not know how to balance them as everyone stepped on. Moss improvised by standing with one foot on the deck and the other on the lifeboat.

After a while of deployment, each about 3-4m long lifeboat containing about 90 people was launched by cable, many screaming in fear. Moss also didn’t know how to start the engine, not even knowing where the starter key was.

“The lifeboats were dropped into the sea in the dark and bobbed on the raging waves,” Moss said. “The people on the boat had a nightmare, they were in the fog, it was very cold and dark, but we had to keep going until all the starboard lifeboats were deployed.”

More and more water flooded the ship, Oceanos tilted more and more to starboard. It was nearly impossible to safely launch the remaining lifeboats on port. The high waves caused the lifeboat to tilt as it dangled from the side cables.

Moss realized the situation was too dangerous to continue. “In the rescue effort, we might end up killing people,” he said.

Time was running out and more lifeboats could not be deployed, but hundreds of people were still waiting to be rescued. Moss and a few others reached the bridge area in an effort to find the captain and the rest of the crew to ask for the next step.

“There was no one in the cockpit,” Moss reported. “That’s when we realized we were alone.”

The orange-red light flickered continuously in the dark, but Moss didn’t know how to use the instruments in the cockpit. They took turns trying to use the radio to send a distress signal. “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday,” Moss called out with an effort. “Yes, what kind of emergency do you have?” replied a deep voice.

Mayday is an international code word used as a distress signal in radio communications. This signal is always spoken three times in a row to avoid confusion with several sentences with similar pronunciation in noisy conditions.

Feeling somewhat calm again, Moss explained that he was on board the Oceanos cruise ship that had crashed and was sinking with at least 200 people on board.

“Where is the current position of the train?”, the officer on duty asked. “We’re probably halfway between the port of East London, South Africa and the port of Durban,” Moss replied.

When the agent asked Moss for exact coordinates, he said he didn’t know the coordinates.

“What’s your position on the ship?” the man asked. “I don’t have a title. I’m a guitarist,” Moss replied.

There was silence on the other end of the line. “What are you doing in the cockpit?” asked the employee in surprise.

Moss then made contact with two small lifeboats near Oceanos’ location. They told Moss to find the captain and bring him back to the cockpit, but Moss didn’t know where the captain was. “The captain certainly didn’t go down because the ship was sinking,” Moss said. “I regularly check the water level, one compartment below has flooded.”

Moss eventually found the captain smoking in the dark just aft of the ship. Moss urgently asks him for help.

“He looked at me with blank eyes and said ‘no need, no need,'” Moss said. “I think he was in shock at the time.”

Two lifeboats near Oceanos had only two lifeboats. They shared the coordinates of Oceanos with South African authorities. The country’s authorities have begun an air rescue operation.

As the storm continued to hit the ship, Moss and Tracy sat side by side in the dark, praying for the rescue team to arrive before it was too late. He and his wife have a 15-year-old daughter named Amber who attends a boarding school in South Africa.

“The ship will sink, we will most likely follow in the footsteps of Oceanos.” Moss told his wife. “Amber can’t lose both parents. By all means make sure at least one of us survives.”

More than three hours passed, and the first rescue helicopter arrived, flying above Oceanos. Two navy divers landed on deck, saying they needed help in rescue operations before the ship sank. Moss was immediately instructed to rescue by helicopter cable for 5 minutes.

“Remember that harnesses need to be fastened under everyone’s arms,” ​​the diver told Moss. “Make sure you do it right, or they’ll flip upside down and fall out endangering their lives. We’ll get you two up at once, or we’ll run out of time. You know what? Just proceed.”

The navy diver was in charge of evacuating people to the helicopter at the back of the ship, and the Mosses were in charge of the front. However, as the ship sank more and more, people began to panic, jumping off the steep deck. A rigid-hulled speedboat was deployed to rescue them.

The Mosses tried to save the floating in mid-air with cables from the helicopter. They were blown by strong winds, crashing into the ship. Moss panicked for a moment, but realized he had no choice but to continue as there were still so many people on board.

A total of five helicopters took part in the mission, rescuing 12 people each time to safety as dawn broke. When exhausted, Moss and Tracy were the last to be taken away. “We were hovering overhead with the cables, watching the ship sink and hit it with the wind,” Moss recalls.

When the helicopter carrying Moss landed on the lawn, the passengers on the train ran towards him cheering, reaching out to hug Moss. “I started choking, sobbing,” Moss said. “And fell right after.”

On August 4, 1991, about 45 minutes after the last person on board was rescued by helicopter to safety, the Oceanos sank into the ocean. Those who left the ship in lifeboats were rescued by passing ships. No one was killed.

A Greek investigative panel determined the captain and four others had neglected to handle the emergency, but these people were not criminally prosecuted.

Moss and Tracy continued to perform music on cruise ships for many years. Three decades have passed, but Tracy always refuses to recall the shipwreck, as she and her husband faced a life-or-death moment.

However, Moss, now a yacht cheerleader, is open to repeating the story. He looked back on what happened with a sigh of relief. “I’m not invincible,” he said. “But if I win that hour of terror, I can overcome anything.”

Duc Trung (According to BBC)