Adventure Magazine

Tom training on the Brisbane River
It was my fourth day at sea since departing Luganville, Vanuatu, on the last leg
of my journey across the Pacific. I was hoping to make landfall in Australia in
approximately 50 days. I was settling into what I knew would be a wet and bumpy
passage back home, with Vanuatu experiencing its windiest season in over five
years.
All day I had been rowing quite comfortably, Maiwar (The boat, ‘Maiwar’, named
after the Aboriginal name for the Brisbane River, is 24’ long (7.3m), 6’ wide (2m),
and weights over one ton when fully loaded) was making her way westward at a
good rate of knots and I had stayed basically dry while rowing with the 20 knot
south-easters on the beam.
At about 4:00pm local time I hung up the oars a little early and retired to the cabin
to do a bit of navigating and prepare for dinner. As usual, I had been in the nude
most of the day, as chafe is always an issue and, in those conditions, it only takes
a few days to run out of dry clothes. Once inside the cabin I contemplated closing
the hatch, but decided against it, as the conditions were relatively benign – (not a
single wave had come aboard all day), – a fateful error of judgment.
I was sitting on my bunk, looking out the hatch, and then, in a split second, my whole
world was turned upside down. My view turned from blue sky to blue water, a huge
crashing sound was heard, and Maiwar was capsized like a bath toy.
There was no time for fear or even a thought, it all happened so quickly. The next
moment I was holding my breath, I looked around me in complete shock, identified
the open hatch, swam through it and made my way under the boat, through the
afternoon-light pierced blue water and came up to the surface, gasping for breath
as I grabbed onto the gunwale of an upturned Maiwar.
My first thought was “Oh my God, it’s happened, the worst possible scenario has
just become my reality”. I scrambled onto the upturned hull and took stock of the
situation.
His boat, Maiwar, under construction.
Exploring the Penrhyn/Tongareva lagoon.
By this stage it was getting dark, and I knew
that of the two emergency position indication
beacons (EPIRBS) I had on board, at least one
would already be going off, due to a fault with the
mounting bracket, and there would be no way
to turn it off; whether I wanted help or not, my
distress signal was going out to the world, and
there was nothing I could do about it.
I then re-entered the water and grabbed a heavy
line, tied it to the rowlock on the starboard side
of the boat, and climbed back on top of Maiwar. I
then began to lean outboard with all my weight in
an attempt to right the boat.
The naked rower
"OH MY GOD, IT’S HAPPENED, THE
WORST POSSIBLE SCENARIO
HAS JUST BECOME MY REALITY"
12//WHERE ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS/#243 ADVENTUREMAGAZINE.CO.NZ//13