Poon Lim
Robert Redford was recently nominated for a Golden Globe award for his remarkable one man performance in the movie, “All is Lost.” While Redford’s acting was impressive, the movie was marred by an apparent lack of even a basic understand of offshore sailboats and sailing. (See our review here.) In the movie, the unnamed sailor is ready to give up, declaring “all is lost,” after only a few days in a life-raft. In this context, it seems worthwhile to remember Poon Lim, a Chinese merchant seaman, who survived for 133 days on a wooden life raft in the South Atlantic in 1942, the only survivor of the British steamer, Benlomond, which was torpedoed by German submarine U-172 and sank in minutes.
Poon Lim was a 25-year-old seaman from Hainan Island, off the south coast of China, who had shipped out as a second steward on the Benlomand. When the ship was struck by two torpedoes on November 23, 1942, he jumped overboard with a life jacket and swam away from the ship, which was sinking rapidly. After two hours in the water, he found an 8 foot square wooden life raft. Tied to the raft was a sack containing tins of British biscuits, a large water jug, some flares, and an electric torch. Poon Lim used the canvas cover on the raft to make to a crude shelter and carefully rationed his supplies. He also used the canvas to catch rain water and fashioned a fish hook from the wire in the electric torch. He caught birds, small fish and even sharks which he killed and cut up using a knife he made from biscuit tins. To keep up his strength he swam around the raft, twice a day when the sea was calm.
On April April 5, 1943, after 133 days on the raft, he was rescued by three Brazilian fishermen as he neared the coast of Brazil. When he landed in Belem Brazil, he walked off the fishing boat, unaided. After returning to the United Kingdom, he was awarded a British Empire Medal by King George VI. After the war, Lim emigrated to the United States. He died in 1991 at the age of 73. To date no one has survived longer at sea on a life raft. Both the Royal Navy and the US Navy teach Poon Lim’s survival techniques to their sailors. When told of his record, he said, “I hope no one will ever have to break it.”
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Poon Lim went back to sea after this aboard the American flag ships. He retired as Chief Steward from the United States Lines in the 1980s. A kind and gentle man he always made sure the crews under his care were well fed.