![\"Digby](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/4JHP6E8_0f014d702e94c9331a7c11a725b0a1fa_avif.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nAfter a freak wave off the coast of Timor-Leste in July destroyed Digby Campbell’s navigational equipment and much of his rations, what was supposed to be a six-day voyage to Darwin turned into a weeks-long ordeal.<\/p>\n
The 75-year-old veteran sailor was found drifting in Darwin Harbour last month, sunburnt, dehydrated and disoriented aboard his trimaran the Singapore Sling, more than a month after he departed Dili in early July.<\/p>\n
Maritime officer Chris Cridland was one of the three men who spotted the boat and approached to do a welfare check.<\/p>\n
“It just looked tired, so we thought we’d better go and have a look,” he said.<\/p>\n
Launch master Rawson McCrae and crew member Joshua Witkin said the Singapore Sling and its captain were in a sorry state when they pulled up alongside it.<\/p>\n
“I said, ‘You alright mate?’ And he said, ‘Not really,'” Witkin said.<\/p>\n
McCrae said Campbell’s ankles were “swollen like you would not believe”.<\/p>\n
The men learned Campbell had been standing at the yacht’s helm trying to steer the ship into port for a day and a half and had not eaten for three days.<\/p>\n
“I was buggered,” Campbell said.<\/p>\n
The trio helped Campbell safely to shore and into a waiting ambulance, but not before they had organised to meet again for a beer, to hear the full tale of the Singapore Sling’s voyage.<\/p>\n
“He said, ‘I wanted to make a Sunday sesh, it’s what kept me going,'” McCrae said.<\/p>\n
“We said, ‘We’ll have one with you mate, you’re a legend.'”<\/p>\n
An angry harbourmaster, two backpackers and a pushbike<\/p>\n
Campbell said he had flown from Bundaberg to Dili in June to purchase the Singapore Sling, knowing the Val 31 trimaran to be a reliable vessel.<\/p>\n
But he was held up in Dili, awaiting the handover of the boat’s registration in the harbourmaster’s office shortly before it closed for the day.<\/p>\n
“All of a sudden [the harbourmaster] said, ‘We gotta wait for someone,'” Campbell said.<\/p>\n
“Next minute this French backpacker shows up. He said, ‘I want you to take this man with you.’<\/p>\n
“Another French backpacker comes in and he’s got a pushbike.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Digby Campbell had been standing at the Singapore Sling’s helm for a day and a half when he was finally rescued.<\/p>\n
Joshua Witkin \/ ABC News<\/p>\n
Campbell said he was able to convince the harbourmaster that the boat was not equipped for three passengers and was also in worse shape than he had expected.<\/p>\n
“He was angry but he gave me my stamp and away I went,” he said.<\/p>\n
Two days out of port in early July, the Singapore Sling ran into rough seas off Timor’s east coast and began falling apart.<\/p>\n
“The big outboard on the back broke part of the bracket away and went underwater,” Campbell said.<\/p>\n
“And about the same time one chain plate broke – that holds the mast up – and the battens were flying out of the main.<\/p>\n
“So I had a motor in the water, the headsail was tangled up, and then another big wave come up over the back and took out the tablet and my phone.”<\/p>\n
Faced with a choice between returning to Dili and pushing on to Darwin, Campbell said he was only really left with one option.<\/p>\n
“I thought the smart thing to do was turn around and go back, but I couldn’t – I got the port captain and these two French backpackers on a pushbike. There was no way I was going back,” he said.<\/p>\n
At that point Campbell had given Australian authorities four days’ notice of his expected arrival into Darwin for what he thought was a six-day voyage.<\/p>\n
During what turned into a four-week trip, Campbell said he was given supplies and radio equipment by Australian Border Force personnel and received a welfare check in the dead of night from a Royal Australian Navy warship.<\/p>\n
“I said, ‘Convey my thanks to the captain, I’m OK,'” he said.<\/p>\n
But by the time he reached Australian waters Campbell’s supplies were running dangerously low.<\/p>\n
“I had one can of beer and two cans of Red Bull,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I thought, ‘When I see Australia, I’m going to have that can of beer.’<\/p>\n
“I actually drank the can of beer when I saw the lights of Darwin. I never saw land, but I thought, ‘There’s land there under the light.'”<\/p>\n
Cridland said when Campbell was eventually rescued in waters off Darwin Harbour there was barely any wind and that his boat was only moving at about 1.5 knots per hour.<\/p>\n
“It would’ve taken him two days to get into harbour with wind like that,” he said.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/4JHP6E8_77f8c7f427008ea84761ea1f636861c0_avif.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
The Singapore Sling is now being prepared in Darwin for its next journey to New Zealand with a fresh coat of paint.<\/p>\n
Supplied: Digby Campbell<\/p>\n
An unexpected connection<\/p>\n
When Campbell was able to reunite with his three rescuers after recovering from the harrowing journey, one of them discovered he had his own connection to the Singapore Sling.<\/p>\n
“We were able to make contact and caught up at Dinah Beach for a beer [and] started hearing Digby’s stories,” McCrae said.<\/p>\n
Having grown up in Darwin’s sailing community, McCrae said a nagging feeling led him to ask about the Singapore Sling’s previous owner and realised he had actually sailed on the decades-old trimaran himself as a 10-year-old boy.<\/p>\n
“Wow! This is freaky,” he said.<\/p>\n
![\"Joshua](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/4JHP6E8_2e49d8d365e5cd2969abedb02966a168_avif.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Joshua Witkin, Rawson McCrae and Christopher Cridland were presented with Distinguished Lifesaving Awards in Darwin this week.<\/p>\n
Supplied: AMOU<\/p>\n
For their heroics, McCrae, Witkin and Cridland were each given Distinguished Lifesaving Awards from the Australian Maritime Officers Union (AMOU) at an informal presentation at a pub on Darwin’s waterfront this week.<\/p>\n
“Their actions embody the very best traditions of the maritime profession and serve as a reminder that mariners look after one another, whether they are colleagues or complete strangers,” AMOU president Matthew Jepsen said in a statement.<\/p>\n
With the Singapore Sling repaired and given a fresh coat of paint, Campbell said he was preparing to set sail for New Zealand, via Cairns, in a couple of weeks.<\/p>\n
“I’ll just wait for the wind to get the right direction,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a freak wave off the coast of Timor-Leste in July destroyed Digby Campbell’s navigational equipment and much…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-612375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}