Matt Lewis barely survived the sinking of a fishing vessel deep in the Antarctic Ocean which claimed 17 lives

12:37, 12 Sep 2025Updated 12:41, 12 Sep 2025

Matt Lewis survived the sinking of the South African fishing trawler Sudur Havid in 1998, but 17 others were not so lucky (stock image)

A man who survived the sinking of a fishing vessel deep in the Antarctic has revealed what went through his head as he was moments from death. Bristol-born Matt Lewis was 23 at the time and working as a scientist aboard the South African fishing trawler Sudur Havid.

The vessel was fishing for toothfish deep in the Antarctic Ocean – also known as the Southern Ocean – in the summer of 1998, specifically in an area known as the ‘Furious Fifties’. It was Matt’s first ever assignment as a marine biologist, and his job was to monitor what the crew was catching. Little did Matt know that, of the 38 men aboard, 17 would perish in a ferocious storm that ultimately claimed the Sudur Havid.

Built in 1964, the ship was 44m long and 8m wide, and had been constantly modified over the years for the demands of fishing all over the world. By 1998, she was showing her age, with poor design and faulty equipment playing a key role in the disaster.

After a slow start, the crew – many of whom were either South African or Namibian – were starting to land plenty of fish. However, on June 6, a massive storm struck the vessel. After being tossed around in the stormy seas, Matt realised the Sudur Havid was struggling to right itself between huge sets of waves, and was starting to list.

“I think we were 120 miles from the nearest bit of dry land, 200 miles from the nearest people, 700 miles from the nearest helicopter or airforce base – which was miles out of their range – and the weather was so bad,” he said. “I just thought, ‘how are we going to make it out of this? Maybe this is it’.”

The captain of the vessel refused to stop fishing despite the awful conditions, and low-grade pumps to flush seawater out of the vessel had become clogged and stopped working. Matt desperately tried to find one of the engineers to fix the problem, but poor training and communication issues prevented them from doing so.

Gradually, the ship listed more and more until it became obvious to everyone she was going to sink. The crew donned lifejackets and thick survival suits, and threw the vessel’s three liferafts into the raging seas.

“I grabbed a lifejacket and then I went outside and there were all the other crew, all lined up like they were waiting for a bus,” Matt said. “I turned to Trevor, who I had been working with that morning, and I just said, ‘what’s happening? Are we abandoning, or what?'”

“And he just said, ‘Yes, Matt, this is it’. And I just felt this welling up of panic,” he continued. “I just thought, ‘what am I going to do?’, so I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm myself.”

They threw the ship’s three liferafts into the water: “At that point, I just had a moment of dread because I looked out at the waves and all you could see was grey water being torn to pieces by the wind. There were snow showers coming through too – it was awful conditions.

“All you could see for miles around us was the sea churning, and snow. I just thought, ‘I don’t see how we’re going to get out of this’. There were no boats near us and we were about to board liferafts and there is no land for miles.

“I just had a moment where I thought, ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do’. But then this cheesy bit of a film came into my head. I’d watched Robinson Crusoe just before I’d gone away and there was a bit where Man Friday was arguing and they were talking about the fact they were about to fight somebody, and he turned to him and said, ‘All mean die, but it’s how you die that matters’.”

“I just thought, if I die, I don’t want to be a coward or fall to pieces, so let’s go down and get off this boat and give everybody the best chance I can.”

Matt went down and helped as many people as possible, ensuring their lifejackets were on and encouraging the crew. People started boarding the liferafts, but Matt did a final check and found one of the crew members who, incredibly, had only just woken up after sleeping through the drama.

Two crew members climbed into one of the three rafts – which could have held many more people – before letting go of the rope connecting them to the ship. They were never seen again.

That left two rafts designed to hold 24 people combined, with 36 men still aboard. They climbed into the rafts, but the rough weather meant they were already half-full of -1C water and it was nearly impossible to bail them out. Hypothermia became a real danger.

“I was the last man off the Sudur Havid. I landed in the middle of all the crew in the liferaft and it was exhilarating. It should have been this moment of terror but it just felt like we were free. I hit the middle of the crew – brilliant,” Matt said.

The storm meant water continued crashing into the raft and all they had to bail the boat out were Wellington boots and an empty Nescafe jar. Initially, spirits among the 17 survivors in the raft were high, but gradually the shock of the situation and the freezing conditions took their toll.

Water collected in the middle of the rubber raft, so Matt found that if he wrapped his hands around a rope that went around the inside wall, he could just about stay out of it. It was still bitterly cold though.

Gradually, as night set in, the raft became quieter and quieter, and Matt felt himself gradually succumbing to the cold. “There was no more talk in the raft, nobody was asking questions,” Matt said. “Everybody had gone quiet.”

“People settled into their own battle to survive. You start thinking about home. I can remember thinking, ‘Maybe I’ll never see my girlfriend again, maybe I’ll never have sex again’. I distinctly remember thinking that and it’s bizarre to think that when you’re adrift in the middle of the Southern Ocean.”

Matt remembered clambering over bodies in the raft, many of which belonged to people who were no longer moving. He saw one of the crewmembers floating in his lifejacket and thinking how peaceful he looked after he had lost his battle with the cold.

Just as it looked like all was lost, Matt was trying to seal the door to the raft when he thought he saw a light at sea. Not wanting to raise false hope, he kept quiet for a few seconds until he saw it again. It was the side of a fishing boat that had rushed to their aid.

Matt was hauled aboard, stripped naked, thrown into a warm shower, dressed in dry clothes, and given hot food and drink. He had survived – but 10 of the 17 people in his raft had not been so lucky.

In the second raft, containing 14 people, everyone survived, while the raft that drifted off with just two people was found capsized and empty the next day. In total, of the 38 crew, 17 died and 21 survived.

It would have been more if the Isla Camila, a Chilean fishing boat, had not heard the distress signal and come to their aid. Their captain had worked out which way storm would have taken the liferafts in the three hours following the sinking and accurately predicted their location in an amazing act of seamanship.