James McAdam Jr., Seafarer and Adventurer, Dies at 44

Before he died the day after Christmas, James Donald McAdam Jr., in his 44 years, had the kind of adventurous life most people only dream about.

Known as Don to friends and relatives, he was inextricably linked to the sea. As a sport fisherman, he set a world record in 1968 that still stands, catching a 563-pound sea bass off Santa Barbara. As a ship’s captain, McAdam once led the rescue of a shipful of boat people marooned near Vietnam. On another occasion, he survived a shipwreck and was stranded for 13 days off the coast of Panama.

“He was something out of a Jack London novel,” said Jean Hinckley, a close friend who, along with her husband, Robert, often hosted McAdam at their Fullerton home between his frequent voyages. “He didn’t just dream about adventure--most of the things he dreamed about, he did.”

McAdam, 44, died Dec. 26 at Tarzana Regional Medical Center of complications related to AIDS, which relatives said he contracted from blood transfusions after a 1987 accident that occurred on a ship anchored in the Persian Gulf.

It was far from being the only time McAdam faced danger during his far-flung travels, said friends and relatives.

McAdam’s most dramatic brush with death occurred in 1972, when a luxury yacht on which he was serving as a crewman “sank within minutes” after encountering a freak storm near the Panama Canal, said his half-brother, Fred Wood, a Newport Beach developer.

McAdam and three others from the crew of five managed to climb into a rubber raft in which they drifted for 13 days, the last eight without food or water, Wood said. The remaining crewman drowned when the yacht sank.

“After seven or eight days, one man, (McAdam’s) best friend, went nuts and just swam away from the boat in shark-infested waters,” Wood said. McAdam tried to rescue him, but the man put up a struggle and McAdam was forced to return to the life raft, Wood said.

On the 13th day, a crewman aboard a British freighter spotted a speck dancing on the waves that turned out to be a sunburned and dehydrated McAdam and his two surviving shipmates.

“Even after his ordeal, he still had no fear of the water,” Wood said. “He was happiest when he was on the ocean.”

At his death, McAdam was a ship captain for Tidewater Crewing Ltd., a subsidiary of Tidewater Inc. in New Orleans, La. His returns from the sea were often marked by sport-fishing excursions out of San Diego and Newport Beach, as well as expensive dinners including $250 bottles of champagne, all paid for by McAdam.

“He had a zest for life, a taste for life,” Hinckley said. “Yet, he gave back every bit as much as he took from life.”

McAdam is survived by three half-brothers, Fred Wood of Newport Beach, Robert Wood of Manhattan Beach and David Wood of San Angelo, Tex.

His ashes will be scattered at sea near his best-loved fishing spots, Hinckley said. On Sunday at 9:15 a.m., family and friends will depart from Fisherman’s Landing in San Diego to the Coronado Islands. The second ceremony will take place Monday at 10 a.m. near Anacapa Island.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in McAdam’s name to United Anglers of California, 2530 San Pablo Ave., Suite D, Berkeley, Calif. 94702.