Sean Langman carried the words written by Phillipa Mills, the girl whose life he saved late last week, as his starstudded yacht Investec Loyal powered through a Bass Strait battering.
After celebrating a secondplace finish in the SydneytoHobart with crewmates, including Geoff Huegill and day tours Layne Beachley, the skipper sat down yesterday to read Phillipa's card.
"There is no way I can repay you for your actions but you will be in my thoughts and heart forever. I will be thinking about you in the Hobart race and I will be keeping an eye on you. Love Phillipa."
Phillip Mills said that without the quick thinking of Langman and his crewmate Ty Oxley, his daughter would have died after falling from Sydney's Woolwich Dock last Thursday.
"We were standing there and out of the corner of my eye, I saw this thing fall into the water and by the time I looked she was under," Mr Mills said yesterday.
"There's a floating pontoon at the dock and she got trapped. All I could see was one day tours her facedown with her shoes and socks sticking out. I just screamed out 'Sean, that's my girl down there, that's my daughter'."
As he swam towards Phillipa, Langman started to panic.
"She was facedown and sinking. She just started to slip away. I grabbed her by the shoes. I remember the pattern of those shoes," he said.
"My first instinct was to see if she was breathing and she wasn't. Things were rushing through my head [and] I was starting to fall to pieces thinking I should have been quicker."
Phillipa was rushed to the Humpty Dumpty ward of Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital, an extraordinary coincidence as Investec Loyal entered the SydneytoHobart to raise money for the Loyal Foundation whose chief benefactor this year is the Humpty Dumpty Foundation.
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