A 17-year-old Whitehorse girl who survived the capsizing of a tall ship in the South Atlantic last week said she is glad to be home.

Erica Trimble was one of 48 students, along with 16 staff members, on board the Nova Scotia-based ship SV Concordia when it sank off the coast of Brazil on Feb. 17.

All the students and crew escaped unharmed and were rescued by the Brazilian military on Friday, about 38 hours after the ship had capsized.

After flying with the other students back to Canada earlier this week, Trimble arrived in Whitehorse on Wednesday, with her smiling parents at her side.

"I bawled my eyes out. I was a slobbery, snotty mess," Trimble said with a laugh, recalling her reunion with her parents.

"I'm so excited to just finally be home with my parents, and sleep in my own bed, and pet my dog."

Fell overboard

The students were on the 57-metre tall ship as part of the Class Afloat program, sailing to Europe, Africa and South America as part of a semester at sea for senior high and university students.

Around 10 a.m. ET on Feb. 17, the SV Concordia suddenly flipped onto its starboard side after experiencing a microburst — a rare and sudden downdraft of air in a small area — about 500 kilometres off the Brazilian coast. "I actually fell overboard. I was on deck and then the ship went over and I fell into the water, and I climbed back up over the bridge," Trimble said.

"It was definitely the scariest moment of my life. Like, I can't even describe how terrifying it was, and how exhilarating it was at the same time."

The ship sank about two hours later, and Trimble and the others spent the next 38 hours on life-rafts, collecting rainwater, preserving their rations and waiting for help to come.

"I thought to myself that if anybody's getting out of here alive, it's going to be me. But I was seasick for the entire time, which was kind of terrifying. I knew I was losing a lot of water," she said.

"As squalls were coming, when we were in the life raft, it was a blessing in disguise because we got to drink rainwater and save our rations on the life raft."

'Tears of joy'

A Brazilian military plane spotted the life-rafts on the evening of Feb. 18. Everyone was later picked up by two merchant ships and brought to Rio de Janeiro.

"One girl was like, 'Oh my God, I think I see a plane.' And we saw the plane flying on the horizon. And it was, like, such an uplift for everybody in the life-raft and everybody got really excited," Trimble recalled.

"When the plane flashed its landing lights, signifying that it saw us … it was just tears of joy all around the life-raft."

While Trimble will spend some time in Whitehorse, she said she plans to finish her Class Afloat semester on dry land in Lunenberg, N.S., where the program is based.