Hero Sailor Died Saving Five Others

June 9, 2008 — -- Roger Stone knew there was less than a minute to escape when the racing yacht began to capsize, but with the ocean pouring into the below-deck cabin, Stone pushed two others through the onrushing water to safety.

Stone, a 53-year-old experienced sailor and the boat's safety officer, didn't make it out — and the boat's five survivors today called him a "true hero" who gave his life to save them. His body was pulled from the overturned vessel Sunday.

"Roger was down below and he helped both Steve Guy, who was down below, and Travis Wright, who was down below, out by pushing them up through the rushing stream of water," commander Steven Conway told "Good Morning America" today.

"Roger was a friend, a great sailor, a great coach, a true hero and our prayers and our thoughts are with his family this time of their loss."

Only Seconds to Survive

The six-person crew, which is a member of the Texas A&M sailing team, had less than a minute to escape once the vessel began taking on water during a regatta in the Gulf of Mexico over the weekend.

"It was somewhere between 30 and 60 seconds from the first report from Roger Stone that there was flooding down below until we were all the way turned over," Conway said.

R. Bowen Loftin, CEO of Texas A&M at Galveston, expressed condolences to Stone's family — including his wife and two children — in a message posted on the school's Web site.

"We hope they can take some comfort in knowing all five survivors of this tragic accident credit Mr. Stone with heroic efforts that were instrumental in making possible their survival," Loftin said on the school's Web site. "We now know that Roger Stone died a hero in the classic sense of the word."

The crew, which also included students Joe Savana and Ross James Buzbee, floated in the open water for 26 hours before a Coast Guard helicopter finally spotted them early Sunday morning and plucked them from the water at 2 a.m. The men suffered from dehydration and sunburn.

A helicopter crew from Air Station Houston pulled the five men from the water 23 miles south of Freeport, Coast Guard Petty Officer Renee C. Aiello said Sunday. They had drifted about five miles northwest of their capsized boat.

Waiting for Rescue

As the group escaped the sinking vessel and waited for rescuers, Conway said no one saw Stone escape the doomed ship.

The five who survived the initial crisis faced a new problem — they only had four life vests.

Conway, a retired coast guard officer, relied on his training to survive during the emergency. Instead of huddling together in a circle, the men lined the life jackets and themselves all in a row.

"We were trying to keep the waves from breaking over our heads," Conway said. "We had about four to six-foot seas and by keeping in a line with the waves behind us, we were a little more comfortable."

While bobbing in the ocean Conway kept the students calm by telling them stories as they clung to their life vests. Guy, Savana and Wright attend the school's Galveston campus while Buzbee attends Texas A&M at College Station.

"Steve [Conway], he told us stories, kept us calm. We all kept a positive outlook and we focused on the task at hand and that was surviving," Guy said on "Good Morning America" today. "I was focused on getting out of the boat. That was my main thing and getting with the rest of the crew."

Meanwhile, Conway's wife, Mary Conway, anxiously awaited any word of what had happened to the crew, which authorities began searching for Saturday morning after the 38-foot sailboat Cynthia Woods missed a radio check.

"Terrifying, absolutely terrifying. I'm still shaking," she said on "Good Morning America" today.

What Sunk The Ship?

Conway said problems with the ship's keel, an aft-located structural part of the bottom of the hull used to provide stability, caused the vessel to capsize.

"The boat's keel separated. The Coast Guard said, when they were on scene, the keel wasn't on the boat. Without the keel the boat flipped over and we were able to egress into the water," Conway said.

Coast Guard officials said the keel of the overturned vessel was ripped off, indicating the sailboat may have hit something in the water, according to the school. Race director Kevin Box said the loss of the keel can cause a boat to overturn in seconds.

Conway, who is the school's computer information services director at its Galveston campus as well as the assistant coach of the Offshore Sailing Team, and Stone, also an assistant coach, sailed with the group as part of the Regata de Amigos. The competition, which had 26 competing vessels, is a race from Galveston to Veracruz, Mexico and has occurred every even-number year since 1968.

The regatta, sponsored by the Mexican government, continues into next week.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.