Actual-life shipwreck story by Sophie Elmhirst wins high prize at Nero Guide Awards

The true story of a British couple who spent 4 months adrift on a life raft within the Pacific Ocean, after their boat was sunk by a whale, has been named the most effective e-book of final 12 months at a prestigious ceremony.

Maurice and Maralyn: An Extraordinary True Story of Shipwreck, Survival and Love, by Sophie Elmhirst, gained the £30,000 Gold Prize on the Nero Guide Awards, on Wednesday.

It tells the story of Maurice and Maralyn Bailey, who bought their Derbyshire bungalow to construct a ship and set sail for New Zealand, in 1972, however needed to survive at sea for 118 days after it sank.

Creator Invoice Bryson, who chaired the judges, referred to as it “an enthralling, engrossing story of survival and the resilience of the human spirit”.

The Baileys set off seeking journey in 1972 however struck catastrophe the next 12 months, en path to the Galapagos Islands.

After the whale cracked a gap of their boat’s hull, that they had time to deploy their 4ft (1.2m) life raft and rescue a small quantity of rations.

Maralyn crafted a fishing line, utilizing a security pin from a first-aid equipment and a chunk of string, and survived on uncooked fish, turtles and small sharks.

She additionally invented card and phrase video games and made dominoes out of scraps of paper, to maintain their minds occupied.

Elmhirst, a journalist, got here throughout the Baileys on an internet site devoted to castaway tales, and set about researching their journey utilizing Maralyn’s diary and books Maurice printed after their rescue.

Her e-book gained the Nero Guide Awards Non-Fiction class in January and has now gained the general Gold Prize for Guide of the Yr 2024.

Bryson stated: “Impressively novelistic in its narrative strategy, it’s a gripping retelling of a real however forgotten story.

“It’s a story of a wedding as a lot as of an journey at sea, one which subtly explores the dynamics of a relationship below the best possible stress.”

Elmhirst’s writing was “understated however highly effective, immersing the reader intimately within the unfolding drama and the horror of struggling to outlive towards the chances with only a few sources”, he added.

The opposite judges had been novelist Bernardine Evaristo and journalist Emily Maitlis.

“We unanimously agreed that Maurice and Maralyn is a non-fiction work that reaches the best literary eminence,” Bryson added.

The Nero Guide Awards are the successors to the Costa Guide Awards and had been based in 2023.

The Nero Guide Awards winners:

• Gold Prize and Non-Fiction: Maurice and Maralyn: An Extraordinary True Story of Shipwreck, Survival and Love, by Sophie Elmhirst
• Fiction: Misplaced within the Backyard, by Adam S Leslie
• Debut Fiction: Wild Homes, by Colin Barrett
• Youngsters’s Fiction: The Twelve, by Liz Hyder