LINACY – A Pictou County family is breathing a sigh of relief this week with the return of students and teachers from the SV Concordia to Canadian soil.
Evelyn MacLaren of Linacy is the grandmother of Alison Grant of Newmarket, Ont. Grant was one of 48 students who escaped the Class Afloat tall ship after an intense gust of wind sunk her off the coast of Brazil.
MacLaren heard Friday morning that the ship had gone down from Grant’s parents, Greg and Deborah Grant of New Glasgow, but little else was known until information began to trickle over on the news.
“(Her parents,) they had gotten word the night before (Thursday) around 10 o’clock that the ship had gone down and they knew nothing else – not one other thing.
“They just paced the floor all night long trying to get something from somebody. And then the next word that they got was in the morning around 6 a.m. – that they were spotted on life rafts.”
Yesterday, she said her granddaughter was back on Canadian soil and doing fine.
“She was laughing and talking with me this morning and said, ‘I had to call you first Nanny,’” MacLaren said.
“She just wanted to tell me that she’s in her own house. I was speaking to her twice. They were allowed to have a minute when she got on shore. She just called to say that she was on land – and of course that was only for a minute. And then later, when she got back to the hotel (in Brazil) all of them were allowed to call their parents and talk to them and fill them in on everything that was going on.”
MacLaren said Grant was on deck when the ship began to sink. The Concordia had four lifeboats for the 64-member crew. Three were tied together and another was separated from the group during the evacuation. Grant was in the former group.
“She, herself, was 41 hours in a lifeboat. She was the last one to get on land.”
MacLaren describes her granddaughter as a smart, well-rounded young woman who leapt at the possibility of travelling with the Class Afloat group prior to heading to university proper.
“Well, she really heard about this at high school in Newmarket, when she was in Grade 11,” she said. “Once she read that and thought about it – got online and did some research – that’s all she wanted to do. She was awarded full scholarships … but no, she wanted to do this.”
MacLaren’s kept a record of her granddaughter’s travels.
“I’ve got all her blogs and everything, I put it all in a book form from Class Afloat and all the different places she went and what she was up to.”
Though the ordeal caused everyone quite a bit of worry, MacLaren said she’s been promised an account of the experience.
“So she told me today that ‘Nanny,’ she said, ‘I’m going to write everything down for you so I won’t forget anything. So I’m going to start right away,’ for everything they went through, day-by-day.”
