By Leila Samodien
As the deadly typhoon Mirinae battered their yacht in the middle of the South China Sea, all the three young Capetonians aboard could think about was abandoning ship in an attempt to survive.
Instead, they stuck it out on the 13-metre catamaran - and lived to tell the tale.
Thomas Donaldson, Michael Allan and Johann Spies, all in their early 20s, are still at sea after surviving the harrowing storm just over a week ago, during which they lost their rudder and port engine.
In an email to his father, John Donaldson of Marina da Gama, Thomas told of battling 100-knot winds with 30m waves breaking over their yacht and rain that came down "like hail being fired from a gun".
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Things had become so bad that they had pulled on all their survival gear, packed up their belongings and prepared to board the life raft.
"We were on the verge of abandoning ship," wrote Donaldson jun. "I was just waiting for the boat to go over, but for some reason it seemed to defy the laws of physics. We only had 29 horsepower to push a nine-ton boat with two more tons of water and fuel, and I honestly can't believe that it saved us. I really thought we were done for."
Skipper Spies was at the helm, with the less experienced Donaldson and Allan, who both live in Marina da Gama, helping.
But it wasn't long before the team lost the rudder and the port engine.
Mirinae claimed at least 57 lives, 20 of them in the Philippines and even more in Vietnam. It left thousands homeless.
John Donaldson said the trio had waited out the storm in the Philippines for a few days. They left the region about 10 days ago, thinking they had missed the worst of it, but when they had got out to sea, the typhoon turned and caught them.
"There was a time that they were right in the eye of it.
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