A Marriage at Sea: A True Tale of Survival, Solitude, and the Strength of a Partnership

In June 1973, British couple Maurice and Maralyn Bailey set off across the Pacific in pursuit of a dream shared by many sailors: to leave the ordinary behind and sail around the world. What followed was one of the most extraordinary maritime survival stories ever recorded.

Their yacht was struck by a breaching whale thousands of miles from shore. With no time to send a distress signal, the Baileys escaped into a small inflatable life raft with only a few salvaged supplies—and drifted, alone, for 118 days.

Now, journalist Sophie Elmhirst recounts their experience in A Marriage at Sea, a nonfiction narrative that blends the high drama of life-or-death survival with an intimate examination of marriage, resilience, and the human condition.

Elmhirst first discovered their story during the pandemic while researching people who sought escape. Amid the usual tales of solo sailors and castaways, she came across a black-and-white photograph of a man and a woman—together, afloat in the middle of nowhere. “It wasn’t just the extremity of their experience that captured my attention, but its intimacy,” she recalls. “It seemed improbable that they’d survived such an event physically, but I was just as intrigued as to how they’d survived it psychologically and emotionally—not least how their marriage had survived.”

On the raft, they endured sickness, hunger, sun exposure, and isolation. They subsisted on raw turtle, fish, and seabirds. They fought off despair with routines and rituals. And they leaned, heavily, on each other—though not always equally. “Maralyn had the power in their relationship,” Elmhirst explains. “She thought positively and pragmatically, while Maurice turned on himself, desolate and self-punishing. Without her, he struggled to know the point of his existence at all.”

While A Marriage at Sea details the harrowing logistics of survival, it’s equally invested in the emotional and psychological toll of such extreme isolation—and what it reveals about connection, dependence, and endurance. As Elmhirst notes, “Their greatest struggles were mental. Once they had the basics—eating, drinking, shelter—the challenge became how to stay hopeful and occupied. The ocean can be a desert of nothingness. Maralyn’s refusal to succumb to despair is a testament to her resilience—and to the radical act of hope.”

Though the Baileys eventually made it home, their story doesn’t end with their rescue. Elmhirst’s account continues into the years that followed, exploring grief, identity, and what it means to survive someone you love. “This isn’t a fairytale,” she writes. “They were always mortal. But her spirit and her hope worked on him, and left him with the richest legacy of all—which was her love.”

Part survival saga, part love story, and part psychological portrait, A Marriage at Sea offers a rare, deeply human look at what happens when two people are pushed beyond the edge—and what they find there, together.

About the Author:
Sophie Elmhirst is an award-winning journalist whose writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Economist, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Magazine. She lives in London. A Marriage at Sea is her first book.

Availability:
A Marriage at Sea will be published on July 8, 2025. Readers can find it through major booksellers in print, e-book, and audiobook formats.

Preorder Now at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, or Bookshop.org.

The post <i>A Marriage at Sea</i>: A True Tale of Survival, Solitude, and the Strength of a Partnership appeared first on Cruising World.