Among those extra thankful this Thanksgiving will be Honolulu resident Jason Arnold.
Arnold grew up in Los Angeles and moved to Hawaiʻi in 1999. In 2009, he joined the crew of the Princess Taiping, a replica of a 15th-century Chinese warship known as a “Junk.”
The vessel was built using traditional shipbuilding techniques and its purpose was to demonstrate the theory that the Chinese had explored the American West Coast decades before Christopher Columbus. It was powered only by sail and had no modern luxuries, except for a radio.
It was roughly the length of the Hōkūleʻa but with a top and lower deck. The Princess Taiping initially launched in June 2008 and reached California in November of that year.
It was on the more treacherous journey back to China in early 2009 when it made a stop in Hawaiʻi.
Arnold first encountered the ship in February 2009 with his friend. They joined the crew days after meeting the captain of Princess Taiping.
On the ship, he was manning the sails, cooking, steering the boat, and more during his two six-hour shifts a day.
"I was completely immersed in the environment, and so I kind of picked it up pretty fast," he said.
However, the ship encountered a tragic ending in April 2009 just 20 miles from reaching the end of the voyage near Northeastern Taiwan. A Liberian-flagged Norwegian chemical tanker called the Champion Express rammed through the Princess Taiping — sinking it.
Prior to the sinking, the crew knew there was a storm on the way. But, they had been through plenty of storms by this point, he said.
Arnold said by the time his crew finished their shift at midnight they were in 40-knot (46 mph) winds and 20-foot waves.
"As you're approaching a land mass in the ocean, the wave patterns change. So in the middle of the ocean, you have a predominant wave pattern, but as you're approaching the land masses, waves start to reflect, and so they can come at different directions. I was stirring and a wave actually washed over the deck, so we were on all high alert after that," he said.
After his shift, he recalls going to sleep. However, he was woken up by John, his bunkmate, at 2:30 a.m. right before the tanker went through their ship.
"I hear screaming, and then all of a sudden, our starboard side, the light illuminates the bow of the ship. I'm like, I must be dreaming. This can't be real, right," he said.
Eventually, the bow of the ship came and a wave washed over the deck into the sleeping quarters. Arnold then recalled being underwater.
"I can't tell you how long it was, but there was a point at which I was underwater, not being able to orient myself. And so that panic starts to set in. So now I'm starting to grab anything that is solid because things are hitting me, and I ball up and protecting my head and stuff," he said.
The tanker did not stop to assist and Arnold said that they "kind of denied that they hit" them.
"I'm looking up at the boat waiting for them to send down a boat to come and get us, and then, I don't know how long it was, it felt like 30 minutes. I see a weight come out of the back of their boat, and they just start taking off," he said.
Following the hit, they were missing two people. In addition to having to try and find the missing people, they also had to find the Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon, which is an emergency signal to alert that there are distressed sailors. However, the EPIRB has to be physically pushed to be activated.
Arnold said after looking for the EPIRB for a while, they thought it was gone for good.
"This was a godly moment. The EPIRB bubbled up between us. True story, like I got goosebumps as I'm telling it," he said.
They then started searching for the two missing crewmembers. Arnold shared that they eventually found both of them, but one was in bad shape with a fractured skull, a broken neck, a fracture in the second vertebrae of his spine, and a compound fractured arm.
He said that at the six-hour mark, he didn't know if he was going to make it or not — which caused him to think about his life up until that point.
"I kind of said a little prayer that if I survive this, the one thing that I'm going to make sure is that the people that are around me Iʻm going to make sure that they know that I love them because that's all I could think about is — I'm gonna miss my family, my friends, and maybe I didn't let them know that I love them, I appreciate them, I value their friendship, their relationship, and then, too, live my life," he said.
This interview aired on The Conversation on Nov. 26, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1. Tori DeJournett adapted this story for the web.
