Following this week's open verdict on their father's death, Nenad Belic's sons will never know exactly what happened to the 62-year-old solo Atlantic rower. But what they do know is that his voyage gave him the peace of mind he was seeking, Adrian Belic tells Gordon Deegan
TWO DAYS AFTER the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, retired US cardiologist Dr Nenad Belic took a call on his satellite phone from his son, Adrian. Dr Belic (62) was in the middle of the north Atlantic, all alone aboard his custom-made 21ft torpedo-shaped boat, the Lun, and oblivious to the tumult that was going on in his homeland and the world.
The retired head of cardiology at Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital was attempting to be the seventh rower, starting from North America, to complete the solo journey across the Atlantic, a challenge that had already claimed the lives of two rowers.
Recalling his conversation with his father this week, Oscar-nominated documentary film-maker Adrian Belic said: “He had no knowledge of the event, because he had not been listening to the radio for a few months. When I told him what had happened and was happening, he paused and then told me how a sea turtle had come again in the night, bumping his boat and swimming with him. He talked about the colour of the sunset the night before and the smell of the ocean that morning.
“I knew then, after more than four months at sea, that he was reaching a sense of being in the moment and clarity that few humans, apart from monks or sadhus ever achieve.”
Two weeks later, Dr Belic, a married father of five, was caught in a major Atlantic storm and sent out a distress signal 260 miles off the Irish coast, prompting a major sea-rescue effort by the Irish Coast Guard. Dr Belic’s body was never recovered, and last Monday, at Kilrush Courthouse in west Co Clare, an inquest was held into his death that recalled his heroic but ultimately doomed attempt to row solo across the Atlantic. The jury recorded an “open verdict” after being directed to do so by county coroner Isobel O’Dea.
However, the conversation that Adrian had with his father after the 9/11 attacks gave him great comfort. “I guess that is why, when he disappeared, though it was a great tragedy that I would never see him again, I was at peace with it,” he says. “Because I know that he had found a sense of peace and inner stillness that few people in all of human history have found.”
Adrian and his brother, Roko, were both at Chatham, Massachusetts, in May 2001 to help their father load the Lunwith freeze-dried meals, dried fruit, olive oil, water and other foods, along with a satellite phone, a shortwave radio and global positioning units.
“Under a midday sun we saw him off, travelling slowly beside him for a few hours in a little boat as he got into his rowing groove,” Adrian recalls. “Now out to sea, we slowed and floated there as we watched his boat slip out of sight and over the horizon.”
Adrian remembers that when they were growing up, their father was “somewhat stern, interested mostly in our grades”. He adds, however, that “once we finished college, and especially when he approached retirement, he began to change into a college kid about to graduate, with his whole life and world ahead of him . . . His seriousness blossomed into a far more playful self.”
On the voyage, Dr Belic soon fell behind schedule, covering only 60 miles in the first three weeks. As he gradually made progress, the Belic sons stayed in regular contact with their father.
“We were in nearly weekly contact with my father through his satellite phone,” Adrian says. “It was not easy, but my father always loved a challenge. He seemed to be in his element, using his body and contemplating with his mind . . . After a few weeks he stopped listening to the shortwave radio and simply was in the moment. He seemed in good spirits whenever we spoke with him. As the adventure continued, the talk moved from the technical, about how things were going on the boat, to more about simply being.
“In one amazing occurrence, he was spotted by a family he knew, motoring their yacht back from Europe to the US. They came alongside one another and chatted for a short while, and then detached and went their separate ways, my father never stepping aboard their boat.”
Last Monday’s inquest heard how Dr Belic’s oceanographer, Jennifer Clark, back at base, advised him on September 24th to contact the coastguard and abandon the voyage because of poor weather ahead. However, Dr Belic continued with his voyage, and his distress signal three days later was his last contact with anyone. The distress beacon sparked a major rescue effort co-ordinated by the Irish Coast Guard. The beacon was recovered, but there was no sign of Nenad Belic or his boat.
“The search was very difficult,” Adrian recalls. “I flew from New York City to Ireland within hours of the coastguard contacting our family about receiving his distress signal.”
The Irish Coast Guard scaled the search back after two days, and then, according to Adrian, “the next three days our family and friends hired a private plane and I went up with their crew to search for my father”. However, after a large storm rolled in, “the potential search area became too large” and Adrian halted the search on October 9th and returned home to the US.
Six weeks later, however, Kilkee architect Tom Byrne phoned Adrian to tell him that local fishermen Gerry Concannon and Tom Walsh had found the Lunfloating upside down about half a mile off the west coast of Co Clare on November 16th. Byrne helped haul the Lunashore on Kilkee beach with his Land Rover Discovery jeep.
“It was a dark November night and it was very sad to see,” he recalls. “What we came across touched an awful lot of people’s hearts in the area. The boat contained most of Dr Belic’s possessions and we came across a bottle of Tabasco, a small fishing rod.
“Dr Belic had been warned that there was bad weather ahead, but he didn’t want to abandon his boat and the irony was that the boat was in perfect condition and fully intact. He was living his dream.”
Dr Belic's story inspired Byrne and the local civic trust to erect a memorial in his memory on a clifftop a short distance from Kilkee, overlooking the area where the Lunwas found.
“Only after contacting the Ocean Rowing Society International did we discover that there were another six rowers ‘lost at sea’ in the Atlantic, and we decided to commemorate all of them by inscribing their names on the memorial,” Byrne says.
Adrian Belic travelled back to Ireland for the unveiling in March 2003 and the 6ft-tall, four-ton limestone memorial lies today off the Cliff Road, near Kilkee, against the stunning backdrop of the Atlantic Ocean.
“These rowers have no grave, no headstone, and the memorial today has become a quiet place of privilege for the families of these men,” Byrne says. “It is a remote spot, but there is a well-trodden path down to it. There is no other memorial for rowers in the world like this.
“Nenad Belic did not fail. For anyone to have been alone and survived across almost 3,000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean for five months, with nothing but the lonely sea and the sky, tenacity, self-belief and many thoughts, is, in itself, an epic achievement.”
The Luntoday sits in San Francisco. Adrian says that he has learnt from his father's great adventure that "we all will pass one day – the question and the challenge is not to live in fear of death, but rather be in awe of life and live every day the best you can".
Adrian says that this week’s inquest “will help with closure, but I think that, for the most part, my brother and I and the rest of the family have made our peace with his being lost at sea. I often wonder what my father would be doing now. Though I have great memories, I guess I miss most what was yet to come.”
Dr Belic is the last person to be lost at sea rowing solo across the north Atlantic, but his ill-fated attempt has not deterred others.According to the Ocean Rowing Society International, six solo rowers have completed the journey, travelling east from North America, since 2001, while, in a reminder of the perils involved, a further 10 have failed, necessitating six separate rescue operations.
