Weekend Read: An SOS from the Middle of the Ocean

Outside Podcast

Wilderness, Sports

4.3 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2022

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Richard Carr was halfway across the Pacific, alone on a 36-foot yacht, when he began sending frantic alerts that he was being kidnapped by pirates. The retired psychologist had set off from Mexico 26 days earlier and was bound for the Marquesas Islands on the first leg of a lifelong dream: sailing around the world. But when his family woke up to a series of frightening and confusing messages, it became their nightmare. In this episode of our Weekend Read series, Carr’s daughter, Alicia Carr-Troxell tells the mysterious story of his final voyage.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From outside magazine, this is the outside podcast.
0:15.7	People have all kinds of dreams about how they like to spend their gold in years.
0:20.9	Kicking back somewhere warm seems popular.
0:24.2	Others have visions of golfing and fishing.
0:27.4	Some prefer to help care for the grain kids, which, hey, thanks for that.
0:32.7	And then there are those folks who want to grain adventure.
0:36.6	If you're lucky enough to have the time and resources, how great would it be to travel
0:41.7	the world, free of responsibilities, and any reason to rush home?
0:47.0	That's what retired psychologist Richard Carr had in mind when he began an especially
0:52.5	ambitious expedition at age 71, sailing around the world all by himself.
0:59.2	But in this case, pursuing his dream led him and his family into a nightmare.
1:05.3	Today, for the second episode in our fall run of weekend reads of exceptional outside
1:11.2	magazine features, we present a story about what happened, written by Richard's daughter,
1:17.5	Alicia Carr Truxel, and first published by outside magazine in 2018 with the headline Mayday.
1:26.2	Our narrator is Julia Whalen.
1:33.8	My father's email didn't make much sense, but it seemed to be saying that pirates had
1:39.4	boarded his boat.
1:41.9	One kidnapped by film company Deep South Black Cult took over steering.
1:47.8	It read, ship disabled.
1:51.2	He sent this to my mother, Martha Carr, at 4.30 a.m. Pacific time on May 28, 2017, a Sunday.
2:00.0	She was at home in Los Angeles, a sleep, and she wouldn't see the message, and a couple
2:04.4	more like it, until 8.30 a.m.
	...

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