The Badass Story of Tami Oldham Ashcraft, the Girl Who Survived 41 Days Lost at Sea

Tami Oldham Ashcraft was just past legal drinking age when she was faced with a choice: die alone on a destroyed yacht in the Pacific Ocean, or buck the fuck up and survive.

Oct 22, 2025

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On a bitter October day in 1983, in the vast Ocean water, 23-year-old Tami Oldham Ashcraft finally woke up. One day earlier, Ashcraft and her fiancé Richard Sharp faced down a category four hurricane on a 44-foot yacht in the middle of the Pacific. The couple had been pummeled by 140-mile-per-hour winds and relentless 40-foot waves.

The last thing Tami remembered was Richard going above the deck to strap into a safety harness to man the cockpit and keep the boat’s stern from facing the waves. Moments later, a massive wave overtook the yacht, flipping it stern over bow through the water, and slamming Tami’s head against the wall of the cabin.

Now, she was alone. Richard’s safety harness was empty. Her head was covered in blood, and the boat was sinking.

This is the badass story of Tami Oldham Ashcraft.

The Storm

When Richard and Tami set off on their fateful adventure across the Pacific, they weren’t noobs. Tami grew up on the docks of San Diego and learned how to sail while spending a year and a half aboard a 123-foot yacht, and she had twice crossed the South Pacific.

Richard was born a sailing man, raised by a Navy officer father, he was booted from the Navy himself and spent time building yachts in South Africa. Hot. In San Diego, he had a boat varnishing business and crewed boats in the city’s harbor, where pretty little Tami caught his eye. Both sexy yachty people, Tami and Richard, were made for each other.

In 1983, the pair sailed from San Diego to Tahiti, where he proposed.

They caught the attention of an older British couple, who ended up hiring the pair to sail their baller yacht, dubbed Hazaña, back to San Diego for some decent scratch. The first two weeks were smooth sailing, so to speak, but then they heard news that a hurricane was gaining speed and headed in their direction. They prepared the best they could, clearing the deck, strapping down equipment, and taking the sail down.

When the hurricane hit, it was, well, terrifying and horrific, as you can probably fucking imagine. If you have ever found yourself on the north sea side of TikTok, that’s probably what it was like.

The rolling waves grew so massive that the Hazaña went airborne as she took them on, smacking down onto the broiling water only to be hoisted back into the air. After Richard strapped into the safety harness on the deck, Tami heard a scream cut through the sound of the roaring ocean before the boat capsized, and her world went black.

Alone

When she awoke, the ocean was still, and blood caked a wound on her head; Richard was gone, and the yacht was taking on water. She was utterly alone. Tami did what anyone in her situation would do — or what we do when we are under substantially less stress — she curled up in the fetal position and sobbed, screaming into the open sea air. She lay in a fugue state, crying herself to sleep. When she awoke the next day, the yacht was still above water. So, she got the fuck up.

Inspecting the damage, Tami saw the yacht had taken a beating. The engine, mast, sails and navigation system were all fucked beyond repair. But Tami said, “I’m going the fuck home,” and got down to business. She made a sail out of a storm jib (a small sail for use in weather) and a broken pole. For an entire week, she pumped water out of the cabin while she plotted her course to land.

She knew she needed to head to the closest spot of land– Hilo, Hawaii, more than 1,500 miles away. If she fucked up the navigation, she would be lost in the Pacific. The only tools left intact were a watch and a sextant, a celestial navigation tool invented in the goddamn 1700s. When we were her age, we could barely count. But Tami was a smart bitch and not only did she chart course with old-ass sailing tools, but she did it WITH A MAJOR HEAD INJURY.

And so she sailed, rationing canned goods and a quarter tank of clean water. The loss of Richard left her reeling. She kept his broken safety line tied around its cleat and wrapped one of his shirts around a pillow that she slept with at night.

Throughout her journey, Tami experienced Third Man Syndrome, a phenomenon during which people in survival situations feel a presence urging them forward to live. For Tami, it took the form of Richard’s presence, hearing his voice encouraging her to keep going.

On the 39th day, she thought she spotted land, but clouds quickly skewed her view and she couldn’t be sure. A military plane flew overhead — low enough that Tami was sure it spotted her — and she saw two ships in the distance. She lit flares, desperate to be spotted, but neither the vessels nor the plane turned in her direction. Being so close to rescue, shattered.

She thought of taking her own life and put the barrel of the ship’s shotgun in her mouth. But her Third Man, Richard’s voice, intervened and told her to go up to the deck to look one more time, and there was one of the Hawaiian islands on the horizon. Hours later, a research vessel spotted her drifting in the Hilo harbor and towed her in.

She survived 41 days alone at sea in a wrecked ship. Back on land, Tami struggled with the grief of Richard’s death and PTSD from her ordeal. Her head injury left her unable to read for six years. Even so, she continued to sail, even traversing the South Pacific once again.

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