Shipwrecked and far from home - Sailing SE Asia Continued... We sailed our live aboard catamaran to Puteri harbour, Malaysia, to ensure good internet in order to watch our eldest son Finn, who gave up cruising in our sailboat, to continue time on the water but in a different boat, a rowing skiff. This year he qualified for the New Zealand rowing team. After winning a silver medal at the Under 23 world Championships he caught covid. Now six weeks later and competing once more, but this time in the Elite world championships, Finn is performing below par. After completing the quarter finals Finn experienced chest pain. Shipwrecked and far from home, e advised Finn to stop rowing.
Music Luna Keller - I don't know where I'm going Coniferous forest David Mumford - Ball and chain Musicbed.com
BACK STORY In 1997, after rowing at the Atlanta Olympics, Rob rowed a tiny 7m (22 foot) plywood boat 2,500 miles from Tenerife (Canary Islands) to Barbados (Caribbean). It took six weeks for Rob and rowing partner, Phil Stubbs, to complete winning the inaugural Atlantic Rowing Race.
Skip forward to 2014 and, married with three children, Rob and his wife Rachel purchased Javelot, a 43 ft Fountaine Pajot catamaran. Armed only with Rob's 3 years of racing P class yachts from the age of 11 to 13, and Rachel's non existent sailing knowledge, We set off to learn the ropes of ocean sailing. We broke stuff, replaced stuff and got to know their boat before heading offshore with the kids, Finn (then 13), Declan (then 11) and Ivan (then 8), in tow. Through trial and error we have become confident wayfarers, kind of. The plan? To sail around the world. Part of the journey will be retracing Rob’s eldest brother Kerry’s travels at sea. Using Kerry’s original letters from the 1970’s we hope to retrace his movements from Australia through Indonesia and South East Asia to Cambodia where Kerry’s life was cut short after straying into Cambodian waters in 1978. Kerry and two friends were attacked by a Khmer Rouge gun boat, captured, tortured and executed. www.brothernumberone.co.nz ***** Follow us in real time on Instagram and Facebook @thecruisingkiwis @finn_hamill @declan_hamill @ivanhamill
