He was 34 years old.
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## Waking Up
Tami Oldham regained consciousness approximately 27 hours after the capsize. The storm had passed. The yacht was still floating, though half-flooded and badly damaged. She had a severe gash on her forehead, bruising across her body, and significant blood loss. She was running a fever.
Her first extended response, by her account, was to crawl into the yellow life raft and wait for the yacht to sink. The hull was breached in ways that she could not immediately assess; the expectation that it would continue to sink was rational given the visible damage. She stayed in the life raft through that first night.
The yacht did not sink. By the following morning, she understood that whatever structural damage it had sustained, the hull itself was not taking on water fast enough to doom the vessel immediately. This was the first of a series of practical assessments that defined the survival period: the boat could potentially be sailed, or at least steered; the question was whether she had the means and the knowledge to get it somewhere.
She went back aboard. She began to understand what she had and did not have.
The inventory was stark. The masts were gone — both of them, broken off close to the deck. The mainsail and headsails were gone with the masts, dragging in the water on the downwind side of the boat, adding drag and complicating handling. The engine was non-functional, damaged by the capsize or by water intrusion. The electronic navigation system was destroyed. The VHF radio was destroyed. The EPIRB — the emergency position-indicating radio beacon that might have summoned a rescue — was gone or non-functional.