Few survival stories in modern maritime history rival that of William and Simone Butler, a couple from Miami, Florida, whose dream voyage around the world turned into one of the most harrowing ocean ordeals ever recorded. In June 1989, their 40-foot sailboat was sunk by a pod of whales approximately 1,200 miles off the coast of Costa Rica, leaving them stranded on a small rubber life raft in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean. What followed was an extraordinary 66-day battle for survival — marked by shark encounters, starvation, severe dehydration, and an unbreakable will to live. The story of William and Simone Butler has since become a landmark example of human endurance, maritime preparedness, and the raw, unpredictable power of the sea.
Who Were William and Simone Butler?
William “Bill” Butler was a seasoned sailor, retired engineer, and lifelong adventurer born and raised with deep ties to the sea. According to his obituary, he began sailing at just 14 years old in Havana and captained his first blue-water voyage at the age of 15. Over the course of his life, he logged an extraordinary 74,000+ nautical miles, completed three transatlantic crossings, rounded the treacherous Cape Horn, and embarked on numerous treasure-hunting and fishing expeditions. By 1989, he was 60 years old and living in Kendall, Miami, with his wife. He was known among family and friends as a disciplined, resourceful individual whose love for the ocean bordered on a lifelong passion.
Simone Butler — sometimes spelled Simonne in period sources — was a French-born woman who had made her home in Miami alongside her husband. At the time of the 1989 voyage, she was 52 years old. Unlike her husband, Simone was not a natural seafarer by inclination; she reportedly agreed to join the round-the-world voyage out of love and loyalty rather than personal enthusiasm. She later described the journey as something that challenged her in ways she had never imagined. Together, William and Simone Butler had built a life that blended adventure with family, raising children — including a son named Joe Butler and a daughter named Susan Smith — and eventually becoming grandparents before setting off on their fateful voyage.
The Dream: A Round-the-World Voyage
The ambition behind the voyage was classic Bill Butler. He had spent three years meticulously preparing for a circumnavigation of the globe — a goal he had harbored for much of his adult life. Their vessel was the Siboney, a 38 to 40-foot sailing cutter named after a popular Cuban love song. The boat was well-equipped and carefully provisioned, a reflection of Bill’s characteristic thoroughness. He was also a ham radio enthusiast, maintaining daily radio contact with other operators around the world as the voyage began.
On April 14, 1989, the Butlers departed from Matheson Hammock Park Marina in Miami. Their planned route took them south through the Panama Canal, which they crossed on approximately May 23–24, 1989, before heading northwest across the Pacific toward Hawaii — a journey of roughly 4,000 miles. After Hawaii, they intended to continue westward, completing the full circumnavigation. By all accounts, the first weeks of the voyage were largely uneventful, and the couple made solid progress. There was no indication of the catastrophe that was soon to unfold.
The Night the Whales Attacked: June 15, 1989
The pivotal moment in the story of William and Simone Butler came on the night of June 14–15, 1989. The couple was approximately 1,200 miles southwest of Costa Rica when they were jolted awake by a loud thudding against the hull of the Siboney. Rushing to the deck, they were stunned to find dozens of pilot whales surrounding the vessel, their enormous bodies crashing and churning in the moonlit water. Initially, the whales may have appeared merely disorienting, but the situation quickly turned deadly.
Bill Butler later described the sounds the whales made while battering the hull as resembling “a locomotive.” The males in the pod appeared to attack the boat, repeatedly ramming its fiberglass sides. Within minutes, the hull was cracked and water began pouring in. Bill rushed below to locate the breach, but the flooding was too rapid. He sent out several mayday signals on the radio — none of which were received. Within 15 minutes, the Siboney had sunk beneath the waves. The couple scrambled to load what they could into their small inflatable rubber life raft: nine tins of food, crackers, two five-gallon jugs of water, some small bottles, half a jar of peanut butter, blankets, fishing gear, three flares, a flashlight, a puncture repair kit, and crucially, a hand-operated desalination pump called the “Survivor-35.” That pump would become one of their most vital tools for survival.
Life on a 6-Foot Raft: The First Days
The early days adrift were defined by a fragile hope that rescue would come quickly. The couple rationed their food carefully, dividing their limited canned supplies into equal and tiny daily portions. Their canned food supply held out for approximately 20 days, after which they were entirely dependent on whatever they could catch from the sea. The raft itself was only 6 feet in diameter — barely enough space for two adults to sit, let alone sleep or find comfort.
Their position in the Pacific was deeply uncertain. Without reliable navigation equipment, Bill could only estimate their drift based on observation. He calculated that a strong easterly current was gradually pushing them toward the Central American coastline — a source of fragile but crucial hope. They had spotted nearly 40 ships during the entire ordeal but were unable to attract the attention of any crew. Each passing vessel that did not stop represented a devastating psychological blow. The isolation was total and the vulnerability profound, yet William and Simone Butler maintained a disciplined daily routine that became essential to their mental and physical survival.
Surviving on Raw Fish and Desalinated Water
Once their food supply ran out, the Butlers’ survival depended almost entirely on Bill’s fishing skills. He initially used the fishing gear they had salvaged, but after losing their hook several weeks in, he resorted to dangling bait over the side with one hand and catching fish bare-handed as they gathered beneath the raft. A sea turtle that passed by early in their ordeal became their first major food source; Bill pulled it from the water and used its meat both as food and as bait to attract fish.
Each day, Bill operated the Survivor-35 desalination pump by hand, a laborious process that yielded approximately three liters of fresh drinking water daily — a precious and exhausting routine that prevented fatal dehydration. The couple ate fish almost exclusively, consuming them raw to conserve energy and water. Bill estimated he forced himself to eat nearly two pounds of raw fish per day. Simone, who strongly disliked fish, struggled enormously with this diet. Bill later recalled motivating her by cutting the fish into small pieces and telling her to imagine it was chicken. He reportedly told her bluntly: “Do you want to die? Do you want to ever see your children again?” — words that, however harsh, kept her eating and alive.
Shark Attacks and Ocean Dangers
Beyond the immediate challenges of food and water, William and Simone Butler faced recurring threats from the wildlife of the Pacific. Sharks were a near-constant presence around the raft, drawn by the fish carcasses and blood in the water during feeding. There were several incidents in which sharks struck the raft itself, puncturing the rubber sides. Each time, Bill used the puncture repair kit to patch the holes — a painstaking and terrifying task, since a fully deflated raft would have meant certain death.
One of the most harrowing events Bill later described was a day he called “The Shootout at O.K. Corral” — an afternoon when the raft found itself surrounded by an enormous school of triggerfish, which attracted a school of porpoises and between 20 and 30 sharks simultaneously. During the chaos, either a porpoise or a shark became entangled in one of the raft’s ballast bags, violently throwing the raft around for several terrifying minutes. Storms and high winds also battered the raft repeatedly during their weeks adrift, spinning it in random directions and making sleep nearly impossible. These storms could last for days at a time, testing the couple’s physical and emotional reserves to their absolute limits.
The Psychological Toll: Staying Mentally Strong
Beyond the physical struggle, the ordeal placed immense psychological strain on William and Simone Butler. The days were brutally monotonous, broken only by fishing, water collection, and the relentless scanning of the horizon for ships. Each time a vessel passed without seeing them, despair threatened to overwhelm the couple. By the Fourth of July — their 20th day adrift — both were beginning to fear they would die of starvation before any rescue arrived.
Bill kept the ship’s daily log meticulously throughout the ordeal, a practice that helped impose structure and purpose on an otherwise formless existence. He also later spoke of the profound role that faith and prayer played in their survival. “We discovered once again the power of God and prayer,” he said after his rescue. “That’s the only thing that really saved us.” Back in the United States, Bill’s daughter Sally Butler (living in Mount Vernon, New York) had awakened from sleep on several nights with overwhelming feelings of terror, and had repeatedly contacted the Coast Guard requesting a search — though the search area was deemed too vast without a more specific location.
Rescue by the Costa Rican Coast Guard: August 19, 1989
After 66 days adrift, the end came suddenly and mercifully. On August 19, 1989, a Costa Rican Coast Guard vessel on a routine fisheries patrol spotted the drifting raft approximately 13 to 20 miles off the coast of Costa Rica. Simone later recalled that when they heard the faint rumble of an engine growing louder, both she and Bill sat up, and upon seeing the coast guard ship heading directly toward them, they burst into tears. They lay in the raft crying for several minutes, overcome with relief and disbelief.
The couple was taken to a hospital in Golfito, a coastal city in southern Costa Rica. Medical staff found them in remarkably stable condition given the circumstances — dehydrated, severely sunburned, covered in open sores from prolonged exposure to salt water and sun, but without any immediately life-threatening injuries. Both William and Simone Butler had each lost approximately 50 pounds — with some reports citing Simone’s loss as high as 67 pounds. Bill had dropped to roughly 128 pounds. After a period of hospitalization in Costa Rica, the couple flew to San Jose and then home to Miami International Airport, where family members — including their 2-month-old granddaughter Jessica, born while they were at sea — waited to welcome them.
Return to Miami and the Media Storm
The homecoming of William and Simone Butler was an international media event. The story of a couple surviving 66 days on a rubber raft in the Pacific instantly captured global attention. Gaunt, tearful, and barely recognizable from their photographs before the voyage, the Butlers were met by reporters at Miami International Airport. Simone, who had lost the most weight, arrived in a wheelchair, though she stood to greet her family. Bill wore a bushy gray beard he had grown during the ordeal, and despite his weight loss, appeared trim and composed.
The media appetite for their story was enormous. Within weeks, the Butlers had received offers for movie rights, TV rights, book rights, and ghostwriters. Two months after their rescue, they signed a contract with the prestigious William Morris Agency in New York. There was strong interest in a book deal and subsequent movie adaptation. The couple eventually decided that Bill would write the book himself rather than work with a ghostwriter, believing that only they could truly convey the intensity of what they had lived through. Bill titled his manuscript “Our Last Chance” — named after the raft they had dubbed with those desperate words.
The Book and the Aftermath
Bill Butler worked on the manuscript through late 1989 and into 1990 and 1991, drawing extensively on the daily log he had maintained throughout the ordeal. He submitted a first draft to the William Morris Agency in summer 1990 and a revised version in January 1991. Despite the agency’s enthusiasm, they were unable to secure a publisher. The Butlers’ agent, Pam Bernstein, who later founded her own talent agency, described it as a fascinating story she believed had best-seller potential, but the deal ultimately did not materialize in the form they had hoped.
In July 1991, the couple appeared on the popular Spanish-language television show Noche de Gigantes, hosted by Don Francisco on Univision, where they recounted their story to a wide audience. By that point, however, the personal relationship between William and Simone Butler had fractured. According to the Miami New Times, the couple had separated approximately one month before the television appearance — Simone returning home one Sunday to find Bill in the process of moving out. The shared trauma of survival, paradoxically, had not been enough to sustain their marriage. Bill Butler later remarried. Their story became a powerful and bittersweet reminder that survival does not always mean returning to the same life.
William Butler’s Legacy and Later Life
Despite the end of his marriage, William Butler did not abandon the sea. True to his nature, he returned to sailing and continued building his remarkable nautical legacy. His obituary noted that over the course of his life he completed three transatlantic voyages, rounded Cape Horn, participated in treasure-hunting expeditions, and logged over 74,000 nautical miles in total. He captained countless voyages with family and crew, and the 1989 ordeal — though defining — was only one chapter in a lifetime of ocean adventure. He also maintained an oral history archive housed at the University of Miami Libraries, reflecting the historical significance his story held for the maritime community.
William Butler passed away in June 2024, at a well-advanced age. His obituary paid tribute to a man who had been sailing since the age of 14 and who had devoted much of his adult life to the ocean he loved. Simone Butler had predeceased him, having passed away some years earlier. Together, their story endures as one of the most remarkable maritime survival accounts of the twentieth century, referenced in survival guides, sailing communities, and emergency preparedness literature around the world. The Survivor-35 desalination pump they relied upon became a celebrated piece of survival equipment in the aftermath of their ordeal.
The Whale Attack: Scientific Context
The whale attack that sank the Siboney remains one of the most unusual and extensively discussed animal-vessel interactions in recorded maritime history. Tom Dohl, a research biologist at Long Marine Lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz, stated at the time that documented whale attacks on boats were “extremely rare” — with only a few cases on record worldwide in the previous 200 years. Dohl speculated that the Butlers had inadvertently navigated into the middle of a pod, possibly disturbing the whales’ young.
Bill Butler himself offered his own interpretation: “I don’t know anything about whale psychology, but I assume we headed into their pack. The babies were in front, the mothers behind, then the males.” His account suggests the males attacked in defense of the pod. In later years, the incident gained renewed scientific and public interest as killer whale (orca) vessel-ramming incidents began increasing significantly off the coasts of Portugal, Spain, and Morocco in the 2020s, raising new questions about cetacean behavior and the safety of ocean voyaging. The story of William and Simone Butler is frequently cited in discussions of these modern incidents.
Survival Lessons from the William and Simone Butler Ordeal
The story of William and Simone Butler offers a wealth of practical lessons for sailors and survival enthusiasts. First and foremost, their ordeal underscored the critical importance of life raft equipment: the presence of a fishing kit, a puncture repair kit, flares, and especially the Survivor-35 desalination pump made the difference between life and death. Without the ability to convert saltwater into drinking water, they would almost certainly have died within the first week or two.
Their experience also highlights the value of maintaining daily structure and routine in survival situations — the log, the fishing schedule, the water collection process — as psychological anchors against despair. Bill’s experience as a seasoned sailor gave him the technical knowledge to navigate their situation, but it was the couple’s mental resilience and faith that ultimately sustained them. Their story is frequently cited in maritime survival guides, emergency preparedness training, and wilderness survival education, making it a lasting contribution to human knowledge about endurance under extreme conditions.
Conclusion
The story of William and Simone Butler stands as one of the most compelling and instructive survival narratives of modern times. From their ambitious dream of sailing around the world to the catastrophic whale attack that sank the Siboney, and across 66 extraordinary days adrift on a tiny rubber raft in the Pacific Ocean, the Butlers demonstrated extraordinary human resilience, ingenuity, and will to survive. Though their marriage ultimately did not survive the aftermath, and though their book never found the publisher it deserved, their story found its audience in the hearts of sailors, adventurers, and survival enthusiasts worldwide.
William Butler lived out his days as a celebrated mariner, logging tens of thousands of nautical miles and passing away in June 2024. Simone Butler had preceded him in death. Together, they leave behind a legacy that transcends any single voyage — a testament to what human beings are capable of enduring when survival is the only option. For anyone who has ever looked out at the ocean and felt its limitless power, the story of William and Simone Butler is both a warning and an inspiration.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. Who were William and Simone Butler? William and Simone Butler were a married couple from Miami, Florida, who survived 66 days adrift in the Pacific Ocean in 1989 after their sailboat was sunk by whales during an attempted round-the-world voyage.
2. What sank William and Simone Butler’s boat? Their 40-foot sailing cutter, the Siboney, was sunk by a pod of pilot whales on June 15, 1989, approximately 1,200 miles off the coast of Costa Rica. The whales rammed the hull until it flooded and sank within 15 minutes.
3. How did William and Simone Butler survive 66 days at sea? They survived by rationing their limited food supply, catching and eating raw fish, operating a hand-powered Survivor-35 desalination pump to produce fresh drinking water, and patching shark-punctured holes in their rubber raft with a repair kit.
4. When were William and Simone Butler rescued? They were rescued on August 19, 1989, by a Costa Rican Coast Guard vessel on a routine fisheries patrol, approximately 13–20 miles off the coast of Costa Rica.
5. Did William Butler write a book about the ordeal? Yes. Bill Butler wrote a manuscript titled “Our Last Chance” — named after their life raft — and submitted it to the William Morris Agency in 1990 and 1991. Despite the agency’s efforts, the book was never commercially published.
6. What happened to William and Simone Butler after their rescue? The couple returned to Miami as international media figures, received offers for book and movie rights, and appeared on television. However, they separated approximately two years after the ordeal. Bill remarried and continued sailing. William Butler passed away in June 2024; Simone Butler had died some years before him.
7. Why is the William and Simone Butler story still relevant today? Their story is cited in maritime survival guides and emergency preparedness literature, and has gained renewed attention due to a rise in orca vessel-ramming incidents off the coasts of Europe in the 2020s. It remains one of the most documented and instructive ocean survival accounts in history.
