Auckland is more or less surrounded by water with harbours on both coasts and endless coves and bays and islands and beaches. It’s easy to see why it claims bragging rights to the largest number of sailboats per capita based in its waters, as well as being a working port and cruise ship stop. From the water, it’s easy to believe, as you can see thousands upon thousands of masts in the many city marinas and at anchor in protected waters. An evening stroll around the downtown marina where the larger visiting sailboats berth tell a story of long sailing voyages to reach this beautiful place so far from home – on one short walk I noted large sailboats from London, Denmark, Cayman and Big Sky, Montana (?). Later in the trip up north, while having lunch beside the marina in Wharangei I spotted a small Canadian sailboat, no more than 35 feet, with a very skinny sailor washing the deck and a dozen plastic water containers lashed to the bottom of the mast. It almost made me lose that lunch – a cross ocean voyage of epic proportions and my own personal nightmare of epic proportions.
Auckland harbour has seen many many impressive sights over time, from regattas to races to visitors in all sizes and shapes of vessels but on our last day there, a transient arrival caused a stir, newsworthy even in this city that has seen a lot of yachts in its day, earning itself a front page spread in the local paper as the largest superyacht to arrive. I was fortunate to have a front-row seat to the buzz.
Early that morning as I made my way over to the coffee machine, I glanced through the glass wall to the harbour to see this sight, just below our apartment – James Bond meets Auckland.
This 439 ft, $330 million yacht is one of the largest in the world and has a crew of 52, two helicopter landing pads, storage for a large submarine and a huge interior salt water pool, among other creature comforts of home. You can rent it for $5 million a week (which is no doubt negotiable) as Bill Gates did last summer. It is owned by the Russian vodka tycoon, Yuri Scheffler, who was rumoured to be aboard, and who is on the outs with Putin, who tried to snatch the vodka, and now makes his Stolychnaya in Latvia, and lives, well, anywhere but Russia.
It was a fun and fascinating morning watching the docking action with binoculars and taking a gazillion photos with my wonderful 40x zoom Canon camera. Every yacht has to have a blonde, so I went looking for her. Oh, there she is.
This was not, by any means, the only black-hulled vessel with pride of place in Auckland harbour. Across the wharf from our apartment is the Maritime Museum where one day I found myself wandering about, pretty aimlessly, without a clue to what I was looking at. In the middle of this 3-storey high atrium of what I found out was a new purpose-built wing of the museum was an intriguing permanent exhibition on international ocean racing. Looming above it all was a huge black hull of a racing vessel suspended from the ceiling. This exhibition seemed to have a specific focus on some guy called Sir Peter Blake. Who?
I ducked into a small darkened theatre off the exhibition space where a looping video of the life of Sir Peter (known commonly as ‘Blakey’ which suits this smiling, blonde Kiwi adventurer so much better) was screening. Fascinating story of this man who spent his life on the seas, becoming a leader in Kiwi international ocean racing, including breaking all kinds of records for fastest circumnavigation of the globe (1994 ‘Enza’), winning all 6 legs of the Whitbread around the world race (1989 ‘Steinlager 2) and ultimately the America’s Cup (1995 Black Magic), which is still described as one of New Zealand’s greatest sporting moments. It was not just his prowess behind the wheel that was fascinating, but also his role in the early development of the sport. Blakey was the team leader, the promoter, the main PR guy, and maybe most important to get the boats built and the race entries possible, the major fundraiser. There was no back office in those days.
The film gave a sense of the private Blakey as well, the family man. His wife Pippa tells the story of when, in their early days together, she traveled with him on one of the racing boats, to the extreme displeasure of Tom Clark, the team’s major funder, who disapproved of women on the boats and threatened to withdraw support. Blakey refused to step down and Pippa ended up spending her honeymoon on board with a bunch of guys, enduring the same hardships as they made their way through a major typhoon, and cementing her place as just the perfect woman for this man. “Family first” he said, not for the first time, which is a bit curious as for their entire life together he was away for many months at a time, and she spent a lot of time on planes, flying here and there to meet him in various ports of call. A mariner’s wife.
After retiring from competitive sailing, Blakey turned his attention to exploration of the planet and documenting climate and environmental effects on the Amazon and Antarctic. He was an expedition leader for the Cousteau Society for awhile and then went out on his own with Blake Exploration after buying his ship from the Society. In late 2001 after completing a major expedition in the Amazon, the ship was anchored in the mouth of the river one evening when they were boarded by a bunch of armed bad guys. In the ensuing fight and mayhem, Blakey was shot dead. 53 years old. The robbers made off with a bunch of watches and a 15 hp motor.
After enduring and embracing everything the planet’s oceans could throw at him – uncountable typhoons and hard weather, running aground off Namibia, breaking his mast in the south Atlantic in his first Whitbread attempt, and much much more, his life was taken too early and too tragically – by a human with a gun.
