Heads you keep the story, tails you lose: Reporting the Tony Bullimore rescue

By Gary Adshead

There was one TV journalist on the warship sent to find missing round-the-world yachtsman Tony Bullimore. When Bullimore was surprisingly found alive, a media dogfight to secure the story began.Credit: Marija Ercegovac

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Forget sleep. This could be the biggest story of a reporter’s career and for the next 24 hours I wouldn’t sleep a wink.

A millionaire British sailor, feared dead after his yacht capsized in heavy seas about 2500 kilometres off Australia’s south coast and 1500 kilometres from Antarctica, had just bobbed up in the freezing ocean.

I was the only television reporter aboard HMAS Adelaide to witness and later tell the world about the miracle at sea.

“There’s something in the water,” I pointed and yelled from the deck of the warship.

“There. He’s alive. There. It’s him, it’s him.”

It was Tony Bullimore – millionaire adventurer and owner of a Caribbean-styled reggae bar in Bristol – after five days of facing death in the Southern Ocean.

Moments before Bullimore’s head appeared near the stern of his storm-battered Exide Challenger, a rigid inflatable boat had been lowered into the sea carrying six crew from the Royal Australian Navy’s guided missile frigate.

Once alongside the Challenger’s upturned hull, a crewman called out hoping for, but not expecting, a human response.

“The boat was three-quarters full of water, upside down,” Bullimore explained, hours after being rescued.

“I heard banging on the side of the hull. It took me, I think, 15 seconds to get to a place in the hull where I just dived down from inside the hull out into the open sea because I was positive there were people there.”

The steep grey starboard side of HMAS Adelaide loomed large in Bullimore’s exhausted eyes.

Within minutes the rescue team had scooped him up.

As they ferried the nuggety Brit back to the frigate he showed his appreciation by kissing one of his saviours on the cheek.

But it would take several days – and some technological ingenuity – before video footage of that seminal moment, in early January 1997, was viewed by news audiences across the globe.

The reason I was on board HMAS Adelaide for the Bullimore rescue was simple. I volunteered.

On the morning of January 6, a story was breaking about two yachts that had overturned in the Southern Ocean while competing in the Vendee Globe solo round-the-world race.

A young Tony Bullimore and his wife. Credit: Bristol Archives

One was Bullimore’s Exide Challenger and the other, Amnesty International, was skippered by Frenchman Thierry Dubois.

The Australian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre had asked for urgent assistance from the Australian Defence Force after emergency beacons registered to the two yachts were detected.

HMAS Adelaide’s captain, Raydon Gates, was ordered to prepare his ship for a rescue mission with the Royal Australian Air Force.

Fierce winds had already wreaked havoc on Vendée Globe competitors. The Algimouss sunk on December 26, soon after its stricken lone sailor was hauled to safety by the skipper of a nearby race yacht.

When I arrived at the Nine News Perth studio, then in the northern Perth suburb of Dianella, to begin a 10am reporting shift on January 6, I immediately asked which reporter was going on the Adelaide.

Acting news director Michael Thomson, who currently anchors Western Australia’s 6pm bulletin and the network’s national evening news, explained that the four television stations in Perth had decided to send a Seven News camera operator on their own in what’s called a “pool vision” arrangement.

Exide Challenger under sail before the Vendee Globe, from the documentary Miracle at Sea. Credit: John Gau Productions/ Orana Films

There was no telling how long a news crew would be down in the Southern Ocean, and while Dubois had been spotted by an RAAF Orion alive on the hull of his capsized yacht, the chances of Bullimore being found alive were decreasing by the hour.

Regardless, I decided to push the case for sending me to cover whatever story unfolded.

Two years earlier, when the yacht of solo French sailor Isabelle Autissier lost its mast about 1400 kilometres south of the Australian coastline, I was dispatched aboard the HMAS Darwin to report on her rescue.

On that occasion, a Seahawk helicopter was flown from the ship to winch her to safety and two days later, the helicopter transported Autissier and I to RAAF Base Edinburgh, north of Adelaide.

Needless to say, the experience beat almost anything I might be assigned to cover in Perth day-to-day.

Thomson, sensing my enthusiasm to repeat the 1995 maritime rush, told me to ask navy public relations officer Vic Jeffery if HMAS Adelaide could accommodate me on the Dubois and Bullimore voyage.

Bullimore emerges as HMAS Adelaide crew knock on the opposite side of the hull. This image was part of a folio that won the West Australian Press Photographer of the Year Awards for Tony McDonough, a Perth freelance photographer sent by Fairfax Media to cover the situation.Credit: Tony McDonough

Within minutes, Jeffery gave Nine’s request the thumbs up, and I rushed home to pack for at least a week at sea and the unusual scenario of working hand-in-hand with a cameraman from a rival network.

By 4pm, Adelaide was steaming away from Fleet Base West and towards the Southern Ocean, where the sea was rough and black garbage bags caught the contents of my stomach until there was nothing left to catch.

An initial plan to rescue Dubois, who was safe inside a sealed life raft dropped by the RAAF, was abandoned on January 8 because of the weather conditions.

Plan B was launched in the early hours of January 9, when Gates sent the Seahawk helicopter to winch Dubois to safety and return to the ship just before sunrise.

The rescue went without a hitch and I still recall Dubois being very confident about the prospect of finding Bullimore alive later that day.

“He will be OK,” he told me as Adelaide charted its course to the Exide Challenger.

Tony Bullimore being warmed after being rescued from his stricken yacht.Credit: Tony McDonough

“He’s a tough guy. He will be in the boat.”

Seven’s cameraman Ross McLean and I chose a midships vantage point to set up and wait for the news story we had come to cover, be it good or bad.

Adelaide came to a halt about 200 metres from the Exide Challenger and from that point on the drama played out fast.

The ship’s crew, led by Chief Petty Officer Peter Wicker, arrived at the hull with equipment to cut through the fibreglass if necessary.

But after hearing voices calling out, Bullimore knew it was time to leave the air pocket he had managed to fasten himself into and duck dive for his life.

“When I dived out and looked over at the Adelaide I could only get a tremendous ecstasy, that I was looking at life, that I was saved,” was how Bullimore described his survival from on board the navy ship.

Isabelle Autissier’s dismasted yacht before her rescue in 1995. Credit: RAAF

Bullimore also revealed how thoughts of dying ran through his mind in the hours leading up to his rescue. He was preparing his hidey-hole inside the Exide Challenger’s hull as though it would become his coffin.

“I really believed I was just on the brink and then I started asking myself questions like am I really preparing my grave?” he explained.

“I really did, I really did.”

News that Bullimore had been saved spread fast and media outlets around the world soon bombarded Adelaide’s satellite telephone hoping to speak with the recovering Englishman, Gates or anyone else aboard who could provide sound grabs for television and radio bulletins.

Overwhelmed by demand, the captain asked me if I would make myself available to newsrooms once I had satisfied my own network’s needs.

For hours, I fielded calls from international media services hungry for the tale of Bullimore’s miracle at sea.

Australian television networks, which were part of the pool vision deal struck in Perth, discussed how to get MacLean’s rescue video footage off a warship more than 1000 kilometres from Australia’s southern coastline at a time when transmission technology was limited.

En route to rendezvous with Adelaide was navy refuelling ship HMAS Westralia, which was also ferrying Seven News technician Mark Allen with equipment that would enable the rescue video to be beamed from the deck of the warship to a chartered plane circling above.

Before any of that could happen, Allen would have to be transferred between ships using a jackstay line and bosun’s chair as Adelaide and Westralia sailed side-by-side.

The ship-to-ship operation couldn’t begin for another day.

In the meantime, Gates announced to myself and newspaper reporters that Bullimore had agreed to do satellite phone interviews with any of the media companies represented on board Adelaide.

It was at that point the harmonious working relationship I had with Seven News came unstuck.

Gary Adshead aboard HMAS Adelaide with Tony Bullimore, left, and Thierry Dubois in 1997.

Gathered in Gates’ office to begin the interviews, McLean asked the captain if it would be possible for Bullimore to call Seven’s number first.

He told Gates he wasn’t sure why, but the network insisted on speaking to the British sailor urgently.

Feeling the tension rise in the room, Gates decided to toss a coin.

I lost the toss and had to sit back and sweat, conscious of the promise I had made to the Nine Network in Sydney that they would have an interview with Bullimore for that evening’s A Current Affair, hosted by Mike Munro at 6.30pm.

It was fast approaching 6pm on the east coast.

Gates passed the phone to Bullimore, and it quickly became obvious the Seven employee on the other end was putting pressure on the man everyone wanted to interview.

Bullimore six months after the rescue.Credit: Stephen Munday, Allsport

“I’m sorry,” Bullimore said down the phone. “I don’t know anything about that.”

It became clear Seven’s representative was telling the sailor not to speak with any other media organisation because a lucrative contract had been drawn up and his wife Lalel had agreed to it back in England.

Again, Bullimore said that claim was news to him, at which point Gates took the phone and asked who he was speaking to.

My stomach was churning. The clock was ticking. A Current Affair was waiting.

Fortunately, the captain, who went on to become Rear Admiral Gates, wasn’t in the mood for any media brinkmanship and told the Seven staffer Bullimore would be speaking to Nine unless they could get someone above his command in the navy to say otherwise.

“I’ll give you five minutes,” the captain said firmly.

When the time was up, Gates asked me what number I wanted him to call.

Within seconds, I was telling Munro I had Bullimore ready to be interviewed, and the seasoned journalist swung into action.

Bullimore, pictured here at home in Bristol in 2006, died of cancer in 2018.Credit: Anthony Devlin – PA Images

Bullimore is what we in the media call “great talent” and as I listened to him explain his story of survival to Munro, something dawned on me.

In trying to secure exclusive rights to the 57-year-old adventurer, Seven had not used their opportunity to record a phone interview with him.

A Current Affair’s producers were delighted.

But the rival network did eventually get their man.

A six-figure contract was faxed to HMAS Adelaide and on January 13, when Bullimore arrived to a hero’s welcome on the Fremantle docks, he disembarked wearing a hat with Seven’s logo painfully visible to the throngs of public well-wishers and television cameras capturing the occasion.

A security team hired by the network – and run by a part-time Elvis Presley impersonator – ensured Bullimore remained Seven’s property until he flew out of Perth a few days later.

But no matter who Bullimore spoke to after the fact, nothing could replace having been in the thick of the action: being eyewitness to the moment one man won a battle against the full fury of Mother Nature, and being the first to describe it to the world.

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