Beach.

Mr. Tony Wozniak, Miss Judy Sheridan and Mr. David Oshell could not believe their bad luck after five days of drama on the high seas.

While initially the Bermudian part of the accident seemed to be the fault of watch keeper Mr. Oshell who fell asleep, circumstances leading up to the grounding are a pretty sound explanation as to why he dropped off.

Bermuda's pilot rescue boat and the Police rushed into action to tow the boat off the rocks and to St. George's Boatyard for repair.

The unlucky trio, from Toronto, were delivering the 42-foot ketch, Orion , to its Canadian owner. They set off from the British Virgin Islands five days ago and were intending to stay in Bermuda for three days to rest and refuel.

But captain, Mr. Wozniak found problems right from the start. He said: "The owner had bought the yacht new in 1982. It cost him $50,000 and in good condition these yachts are superb.

"But the people in the Virgin Islands had not been looking after it correctly. We also heard that they had been chartering it out to other people.

"The owner had only been using it a couple of weeks a year and he was sure it was still in excellent condition.'' On boarding the Orion they immediately noticed problems with the alternator, the sump pump and the bilge pumps.

They fixed the pumps, bought a new alternator and then set out to sea, but within two days things had started to go wrong.

The alternator broke down, there was damage to the mizzen mast and they found the bilge tank was full. This affected the whole water supply of the yacht and for the last two days of the voyage they were unable to wash and were faced with a terrible smell.

Sixty miles off Bermuda, and after more problems, Mr. Wozniak realised that the fuel gauges were not working and they were low on fuel.

He said: "We radioed for someone to bring us fuel but nobody responded. We could not use the sails to get into the Island and we had no fuel to come in using the engine.

"It was a case of having to tack as near to Island as possible and then hope we would get some help coming in.'' After more than a day without sleep Mr. Wozniak finally decided to go to bed around 6 a.m. yesterday. He left Mr. Oshell to keep watch but neither he nor Miss Sheridan had slept for 20 hours.

Mr. Oshell said: "We must have been only two or three miles away from the Island. I fell asleep. It must have only been for an hour.'' Mr. Wozniak said: "The first I knew of anything was when I woke up on floor of the cabin. I went up and found us on the rocks.'' No-one was hurt and the yacht was not taking on much water, but a number of fishing boats stood by in case any assistance was needed.

The yacht was pulled off the rocks by the rescue boat St. David with the help of a marine Police vessel.

It was towed to St. George's and was out of the water by 10.45 a.m. where its rudder was found to be missing and there was damage to the windows.

Mr. Wozniak said: "We estimate the damage to be around $8,000 but the boat is insured. We will repair it here. I will tell the owner today.

"I have delivered a number of boats and been involved in 40 to 50 voyages. I have had some bad voyages but this is by far the worst. It was a nightmare.'' It was Miss Sheridan's first voyage and, she says, her last.

On arriving in Bermuda the threesome set off to find a pub to calm their nerves and, to add insult to injury, were greeted with the news that their home town baseball team the Toronto Blue Jays had lost the first game of the World Series.