Q&A with Tami Oldham Ashcraft Author of

RED SKY IN MOURNING: A True Story of Love, Loss, and Survival at Sea

How accurate was the film, "A Perfect Storm"?

ASHCRAFT: Actually, they did a terrific job portraying what it's like. The only criticism I have of the film is that they didn't show enough spray. When the wind's howling that hard, it's picking up spray right off the top of the water. There's so much spray, you can hardly see anything. It's like being in a blizzard.

Describe what the conditions were like just before Richard was swept away and you got knocked out.

ASHCRAFT: The waves were 50-footers — about the size of a five-story building. Before the weather intensified, we were handling it really well, going up and over them. As it got worse, we'd become air borne on the tops of the waves and come crashing down the backsides. That's where the integrity of the boat came through for us — because I thought it was going to split in half at times. There was such force on that hull from that amount of pounding. I didn't see the size of the wave that capsized us, because I was below. But I know Richard saw it, because he screamed. It must have been just a monster.

How long was it like this?

ASHCRAFT: I say we were in the worst of it for probably two hours. It started about 11 in the morning. I went below about 1 p.m. Those two hours were just wicked. Just unimaginable. It was finally to the point that I didn't even want to look out to the side. I'd never been in anything that severe. I screamed over to Richard at one point, "Is this the worst it's going to get?" And he said, "We'll tell our grandchildren about this. We're going to make it."

Had you ever been caught in a storm anywhere near that bad?

ASHCRAFT: I've been in a couple of gales, but nothing like Raymond, which was a category four hurricane.

How does that rate on the scale of hurricanes?

ASHCRAFT: Five is the worst.

How do you know the boat capsized and pitch-poled, since you were unconscious?

ASHCRAFT: I know it capsized 360û, because I was conscious for most of that. I know from how all the debris was arranged down below that the boat went end over end–pitch-poled.

Tell me about the Hazana, the boat you were stranded on.

ASHCRAFT: Well, 44 feet isn't really that big when you start pacing it off. But as a boat, it's a big boat. It was 12 feet wide. There were two state rooms, two heads–bathrooms, a nice size galley and dining area, and a navigational station, where all the electronics were. Very plush, very nice. It was a state-of-the-art boat. Trintellas are incredible. There is a lot of attention to detail. They start at a million dollars. I don't own one, but I'd love to.

You've said that you probably would not have survived if the boat had not been a Trintella. Why?

ASHCRAFT: It's a very well-made boat and very strong. It was just phenomenal that the rudder didn't break off, like so many probably would. It says a lot for the integrity of the boat that it stayed together. The mast being ripped off the boat was not a good thing, but at least it didn't stay connected and banging around possibly puncturing the hull. Very little of the deck was actually ripped out. I mean, there was a hole ripped in the deck, but it wasn't a great big huge portion of the deck. And the fact that the boat righted itself; probably half the boats on the market would have sunk.

During those 41 days you were alone out there, what did you do most of the time?

ASHCRAFT: Mainly, I focused on my three daily sun sights, where I got out the sextant and calculated my position and how far I'd drifted off course when I was sleeping. At night, if I had a good wind, I'd steer Hazana as long as I could stay awake. Then I'd lash the wheel and crawl into my sleeping bag in the cockpit until the sun came up. Every morning, I'd look 360û around the horizon. But there was never, ever, anything there but water and sky. The second thing I'd always do was check the jury rig, to see if the lines were chafing. If there was no wind, I'd lash the wheel and force myself to go below to make notes in the logbook and clean up a bit.

What if there was wind?

ASHCRAFT: I spent a lot of time steering and being behind the wheel. There was always the constant pressure of knowing that when I wasn't at the helm, the boat was not going in the direction I needed it to. When I was taking my navigation readings, it took about half an hour to get all the mathematics down. That whole half hour I'm rushing, because I have to get up behind that wheel in order to stay on course. I was always under pressure to keep moving. And then, of course, there were the calm days — the days you can't go anywhere, because there's not a breath of wind.

How did you ever manage to sleep during this ordeal?

ASHCRAFT: Well, I was exhausted. I would stay up as long as I could. The boat would not steer itself, so if I was not behind the wheel steering the boat, it would not be going in the direction I wanted it to, and every inch counted. And so I spent hours and hours and hours steering. I would stay up until I was literally just falling asleep right at the wheel. And then I'd let the boat drift at night and get maybe six hours of sleep, if I was lucky. Then I'd be up at the crack of dawn back at the wheel.

You couldn't attach a rope to the steering wheel to keep it going in the right direction?

ASHCRAFT: No, that's only when a boat is balanced. That's only when the sails are set right, and you can put the auto-pilot on or you can put the wind vane on and the boat is very balanced. Under my tiny little jury rig, even when the sail was full of wind, there was no way the boat was balanced enough to steer itself.

You never saw a single ship the whole time you were out there?

ASHCRAFT: I actually saw two of them, plus a military aircraft, but couldn't get their attention.

The sextant basically saved your life. Where did you learn how to use one?

ASHCRAFT: I started becoming interested in celestial navigation while I was crewing on the square rigger Sophia, a 123-foot schooner. The captain on board helped a little group of us to learn about how to read the sun and the stars and the sextant. Then when I got to New Zealand, I took a course in it. And thank god I did. There's no way you can get to a location just by compass reading. It was the biggest part of my survival. If I would have not known how to celestial navigate I would have died.

What would have happened if you hadn't found your watch on the boat to give you the exact time in order to make the calculations?

ASHCRAFT: Until I found the watch, I was doing what the old time sailors had been doing before they had accurate time pieces: sailing by latitude. Get on a latitude and follow it until you hit land. Hawaii is on the latitude 19º North. As long as I stayed on that latitude, I probably would have hit Hawaii. Maybe. And as it was, even with having a watch and my calculations, I was quite a bit south. I saw the island on the horizon 60 miles away, but I really had to work my way to windward to get to it. It didn't just appear right in front of me.

Meanwhile, you were only doing a maximum of two knots an hour?

ASHCRAFT: Some days, not even that if there was no wind. If I was lucky and had a really good trade wind going, I'd do two and three miles an hour. When I had wind and a strong current, I could get up to four or five knots. There were three different days I did 60 miles in a twenty-four hour period. And that was huge for me. At that point you knew the current had kicked in and was really running. But it was slow going, 41 days of that. It was like watching grass grow.

What did you have to eat?

ASHCRAFT: I really survived on peanut butter. All of the fresh food was lost when the refrigeration went out, and I had no way to cook. I had one duffle bag of canned goods, but after awhile all the labels came off. It was always a mystery what was for dinner.

How close were you to running out of food or water?

ASHCRAFT: I would have run out of food before I ran out of water probably — because I didn't have all that much food. But I probably would have lasted only another month.

Did you ever go on another long cruise again?

ASHCRAFT: Oh, yeah. Three months later I flew back down to Tahiti and gathered my things off Richards boat, the Mayaluga. I signed on another boat and cruised the South Pacific Islands to Fiji. I then came back home, and that's when I got my 100-ton captain's license. After that, I was flown to the Caribbean and I became the first mate on a 109-foot schooner. That was a research vessel that sailed off-shore up the United States to Labrador, where we were dodging icebergs.

How did your ordeal change you?

ASHCRAFT: I'm much more cautious now. I guess it does stem from fear. I do not take any chances at all. I'm the first to say reduce sail. I will not cruise outside of cruising seasons.

Does your husband sail?

ASHCRAFT: Yes, he sails. He's very good on boats. He fished for a long time up in Alaska and he's very boat savvy.

Any plans for another long cruise?

ASHCRAFT: Five years from now, my husband and I want to take off with the kids, home school them onboard, and cruise to the South Pacific for maybe a year or two.

Why did you wait so long to write your story?

ASHCRAFT: There were many times I thought I would start a project of writing the book, but it's just such a monumental task that I didn't have the time to do it. My life was too busy trying to keep my head above water, making a living and all that. Several times I attempted to start, but mostly I made notes. So I had those to look back on. It was such a monumental happening in my life that even some of the smallest details I will never forget.

When did you start writing the book?

ASHCRAFT: We started writing it in 1994, and the self-published version came out in the fall of 1998.

How did the book come about?

ASHCRAFT: Susea McGearhart and I decided to write the screenplay first, because her dad was involved in making movies and she's always been fascinated with writing. When the screenplay was done, we decided to write the manuscript for the book. When we got it done, I sent it off to a couple of publishers and got refused. I'd been told by so many people — just normal, everyday people — that I should be putting this down in book form. So when I got refused by these publishers, I decided that I was going to do it myself. It's not easy doing a self-published book, but it was a total learning experience and I enjoyed it.

How much did it cost to print it yourself, and how did it do?

ASHCRAFT: $17,000. My first print run was 5,000. It ended up selling about 9,000 copies before Hyperion Books acquired it.

The hardest thing about self-publishing is getting your book in stores. How did you do it?

ASHCRAFT: I just called up the main book distributors and Amazon.com and set up accounts. Plus, this island sold a ton. Friday Harbor [where she lives in the San Juan Islands] is a major tourist area in the summer, and the book was carried in all the bookstores and gift shops here. I also sold a lot of them through yacht clubs, boat shows, and speaking before groups and organizations.

How did your book get acquired by a major publisher like Hyperion?

ASHCRAFT: About two years ago, a New York literary agent by the name of Jill Grinberg was visiting Friday Harbor and found my self-published version in a local bookstore. The store owner told her I was a local author, and Jill bought it and stayed up all night reading it. She went back to the store the next day and said, "Do you know this gal?" Dorothea, the owner, said, "Yes." So Jill gave Dorothea her card and said that I should call her if I'm interested in taking the book to the next level. Well, Jill wasn't out the door a second when Dorothea called. So Jill, Susea, and I got together the next day. Then Jill went back to New York, and sure enough, the book ended up in a bidding war between a couple of publishers and now has changed my life.