By JESSICA GARRISON and LEE ROMNEY ,
TIMES STAFF WRITER


Richard Van Pham drifted and slept, slept and drifted--for nearly four months and 2,500 miles--from Long Beach to waters off Costa Rica.

He ate roasted turtle, tuna and a seagull and drank rainwater. And when he was finally rescued by the U.S. Navy, all he wanted was help fixing his broken mast and motor so he could sail on again.

Instead, the Navy sank his boat and dropped him off in Guatemala.

He was able to buy a plane ticket after sailors aboard the frigate McClusky took up a collection for his fare. On Tuesday, he arrived back in Los Angeles.

Pham said Tuesday night that every day as he drifted at sea, he scanned the horizon for any sign of life, any sign of land.

"I see nothing," he said, describing his ordeal. "Then one day, I see a plane. I know I'm close to people. They tip their wings to say hello. Two hours later, a ship comes to my boat. I am very, very happy."

Capt. Terry Bragg, commander of Destroyer Squadron One in San Diego, which oversees the McClusky, said he had never heard a story of survival like Pham's.

"It's a three-hour cruise gone bad," Bragg said. "It's like a cross between Gilligan's Island and Robinson Crusoe."

The Navy came upon Pham 300 miles off Costa Rica on Sept. 17, nearly four months after the Southern California man had set off from Long Beach for a short, easy sailing jaunt to Santa Catalina Island.

Somewhere on that 22-mile journey, a storm blew in and whipping winds broke the Sea Breeze's mast. Then the outboard motor failed, and so did the radio, according to Navy officials.

'"For two months the wind continued nonstop," Pham said. The breezes augmented the ocean currents that pushed him steadily south.

What's more, the 62-year-old Vietnamese immigrant, who told Navy officials he had no family, had not filed a float plan. No one reported him missing, so no one went looking for him.

So he drifted, alone in his 26-foot boat. He stayed below deck during the day to keep out of the sun.

Though barnacles collected on his boat's hull, his solar-powered generator worked, and sometimes he watched videos on his small television. He put out a five-gallon bucket to collect rainwater. He caught fish, eating some and hooking others to his broken mast to attract seabirds to roast. He tore the wood paneling off his boat and set up a makeshift grill. He netted a sea turtle that swam near his boat and salted the meat to store for times when food was scarce.

"If you travel at sea, you take what you find," Pham said. "If you are scared, you will die."

Gary Parriot, captain of the McClusky, still sounded flabbergasted Tuesday as he related the tale of the rescue via satellite phone to his commanding officer in San Diego.

The McClusky, a 453-foot guided-missile frigate, was finishing up six months of counter-narcotics patrol off the coast of Central America last week when a U.S. customs P-3 drug-hunting plane reported a broken-down sailboat bobbing in the water nearby, he said.

The frigate headed up to the area at maximum speed, and an hour and half later spotted "a very dilapidated sailboat."

The McClusky blew its whistle, and a skinny man came up on the deck of the Sea Breeze and began waving his arms frantically, Parriot said.

Sailors, along with a medic, lowered into a little boat and sped over to him.

It was early afternoon, and they found Pham in the middle of fixing a lunch of roasted seabird on his homemade grill. Later, he told sailors that what he really liked to eat was turtle.

They hailed him in Spanish, but the sunburned mariner said he couldn't speak that language, though his English was excellent.

Pham was delighted to see the sailors, but he refused medical treatment, Parriot said. Instead, what he wanted was a new sail and help fixing his mast, so he could sail on. He thought he was somewhere near Hawaii.

Back on the frigate, Parriot said he listened to the radio transmissions from his crew with growing amazement. "It was coming in in pieces," he said.

"It was unbelievable ... the guy had been lost at sea for four months."

Engineers on the McClusky told Pham it didn't look good for the Sea Breeze. The fuel was contaminated with water, the mast was beyond repair and the vessel was simply not seaworthy.

They persuaded Pham to come aboard the frigate. They thought about towing his boat but soon concluded that wasn't possible. Reluctantly, Pham gave permission for the Navy to sink the Sea Breeze. But he went below deck so he wouldn't have to watch as they loaded it up with smoke floats and set it aflame.

"He was pretty distraught," Parriot said. "The sad part is, he lost his home."

Pham told the sailors that he was retired and had been living on the Sea Breeze, docking it in Long Beach in between trips. He said he had come to the United States from Vietnam in 1976 as a refugee. Among the items he grabbed from the Sea Breeze before it sank was his green card, Parriot said.

Pham said in an interview that after he came to this country in 1976, he became a successful businessman, owning furniture stores in North Hollywood, Culver City and Los Angeles and an auto mechanic shop.

But about 10 years ago, he said, a car accident left him in a coma for six months. When he regained consciousness, he had suffered severe memory loss and had to relearn English and simple tasks such as taking the bus. The injuries left him unable to run his business, and the hospital bills exhausted his savings, he said. He lost everything.

Long Beach officials said Pham did not have a permanent slip in their city but had rented space for four days in May. Until January, Pham apparently lived in an apartment on West 7th Street in the jewelry district in downtown Los Angeles. He left no forwarding address when he moved out.

Aboard the McClusky, Pham slept in sick bay but took his meals with the sailors. A medical examination revealed that he had lost some weight but had no obvious health problems. He did say he had lost a tooth, but Parriot did not know how.

Pham ate with gusto, coming back for seconds, the captain said, even though the menu on his first night was fish, a meal Pham had had quite enough of over the last four months.

Crew members fussed over their new arrival. "They adopted him," the captain said.

They were captivated by his tales of adventure. How had he had the ingenuity to tie fish to the mast to attract birds? To bash sea turtles? To set aside some of the meat for salting?

"The ship McClusky, they're like my family," Pham said. "They treated me like a brother. I love them."

The crew members were touched and saddened to learn that the man was now homeless and did not have enough money to get himself back to the United States. Before the frigate stopped in Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala, to drop Pham off, sailors had taken up a collection and raised $800 for his plane
fare.

Arriving at Los Angeles International Airport on Tuesday, Pham was directed to Traveler's Aid, which provided him with a room for the night. His future is uncertain.

Parriot said he was impressed with Pham's survival skills and would love to have him as a companion if ever he found himself drifting rudderless and lost in the ocean.

But before sailing with him, the captain added, "I think I would make sure he had more safety devices on board."

*

Garrison reported from San Diego and Romney from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Peter Y. Hong, Louis Sahagan and Vivian LeTran contributed to this
report.

source: www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-adrift25sep25.story

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