10 minute read
27 Sailing into summer
David Hogg on his 50-foot ketch, Juno Blue.
Sailing into summer
Nelson’s affair with the sea can be traced back to the earliest times of human occupation about seven centuries ago, when Māori first arrived. Our affinity with it, beyond a means of transport to a place where people sailed for fun, happened soon after colonisation. Our writer Tracy Neal, who has spent years sailing Nelson’s coastline, tells us why it’s so special.
TRACY NEAL
December means two things: the hurly burly of Christmas, and for those with a boat, the chance to pack up the ham, the fruit cake, and sail off into the sunset.
In David Hogg’s case, the provisions are usually prime prosciutto, buffalo mozzarella, fresh milk for his tea and cream for his morning coffee. In fact, it was what he was loading into his yacht’s chiller the evening Nelson Magazine caught up with him on his 50-foot ketch, Juno Blue. “There are some things I just won’t go without,” he explains. David, whose career revolves around the seafood industry, was heading off on one of his regular jaunts to d’Urville Island, and a quiet anchorage from where he usually catches his own dinner.
“I catch fish every day. There are places I know where I can get paua, and you can see I’ve got a new system for catching crayfish,” he says, pointing to a new metal basket with which he planned to lure at least one of the d’Urville Island delicacies. While the majority of Nelson sailors might typically pack powdered milk, baked beans and cabin bread for a fiveday sojourn, all share an equal love for sailing Tasman Bay’s coastline. In between the rough seas and occasionally queasy journeys, sailing offers glory days of golden sunsets, sunripened children and salt-laden adventures. “This is my happy place, it’s definitely an escape,” David says of the yacht strong enough to sail any of the world’s five oceans. He says Nelsonians are lucky to have an affordable marina, which costs about a quarter of what it might in Auckland to moor a boat. He says while many look upon boating as something only for the wealthy, that’s not necessarily the case here.
“You afford a boat by working hard and making a commitment to continually pouring money into a hole, which is bottomless. And you keep on doing it, and the reason is because you love to be on the water.”
He says the “interesting characters” associated with boating also add to the appeal, but he does confess to remembering mostly just the good bits about sailing and not the bad, and there are plenty of those times. “Tasman Bay is not an easy place for someone to learn how to sail a boat. I mean, you can, but you have to pick your days because the bay can get nasty quite quickly. “I’ve been into Port Hardy (d’Urville Island) probably 40 times and not once has it been smooth. Every time it’s like being in a tumble dryer because of the wind and current.” David says the wind in Tasman Bay can be challenging. “If you look at all my tracks (on the electronic chart plotter) none are in a straight line.” He says that has nothing to do with the rack of chardonnay on board, but everything to do with the wind coming from five different directions within a single journey, often within the time it takes to sail to the Abel Tasman National Park.
David Hogg Blair Taylor and Khidra Stevens at the Nelson Marina.
The proximity of the Nelson Marina to the centre of the city makes it an easy walk or cycle for those living on their boat.
“With sailing, every day is another test. If you don’t have a respect for the ocean then don’t do this because it’s always going to be a lot bigger and more powerful than we’ll ever be.”
The rewards, however, are being able to swim in the park’s cool aquamarine lagoons, hike its trails and be woken at dawn by the din of native birds while anchored off Adele Island.
The area is a big drawcard for Nelson boaties, which are increasing in number. The Nelson Marina now has just over 600 berths, plus maintenance facilities for boat haul-outs, a refuelling area, swing moorings, and a public boat ramp. Blair Taylor is the marina’s operations team leader and is part of the new guard now helping to manage the Nelson City Council-owned facility. He says spaces are usually in high demand, typically from January/February during school holiday time, and when it’s usually better weather for sailing. “On F Pier down here, that’s our visitors’ pier, which means we keep the berths there as short-term rentals, so there’s room for visiting boats.” The marina at Port Tarakohe in Golden Bay is a popular destination for yachts and launches visiting the Abel Tasman National Park.
Manager Steve Tennant says the 60-berth marina accommodates commercial and recreational boats, plus 21 moorings within the small harbour.
“We have a waiting list for recreational boats 14 metres and smaller, but we do allow space for visiting vessels over the summer.”
Steve warns that boats aren’t allowed to anchor within the port area, therefore it pays to watch the weather before venturing into Golden Bay, where shelter is limited, and where the sea cuts up rough very quickly.
“A lot don’t understand how bad it can be here when the wind gets up. You get a warning when you can see the horizon starting to ‘boil’ and once that begins it’s time to shoot home.”
Blair says Nelson is no exception to the nationwide trend of people seeking alternative living arrangements to combat rising house costs. There’s a queue wanting space at the marina to live on board a boat, and it’s not moving fast. “Yes, there’s a fairly sizeable waiting list. There is a cap on the number who can live aboard; we try to keep that at three boats per pier, and it’s about that now.”
It costs an extra $165 per month to live aboard on top of the annual licence fee, which ranges from about $2500 to $5000 a year, depending on the size of the boat, or the berth it occupies. Blair says people might have romantic notions about living on a boat but when reality hits, such as the challenges of living in a very confined space, a few think twice.
The Nelson City Council sees the marina as part of a broader, city-to-sea project within its strategic development plan, and a place the wider community can enjoy.
Tragedy and adventure lead couple to Nelson
Banu Oney and Peter Saggers at the Tasman Bay Cruising Club.
Banu Oney and Peter Saggers hitched a ride on a breeze that brought them to Nelson by chance six months ago. It’s the way they’ve each lived for decades before they met in 2009 in Gibraltar.
Banu is the daughter of a well-known seafaring family from Turkey. The psychology professor quit academia and an international career following a brain aneurysm in 2005, and went sailing. Peter, a New Zealand boat designer and builder has spent his life at sea, but the worst storm he’s encountered was the cancer which struck a few years ago. When we caught up with them at the Tasman Bay Cruising Club, Banu had recently been released from MIQ in Auckland, following her return from Turkey. Her beloved mother died months back, in the arms of a friend while swimming in the blue Aegean Sea. “She had always wanted to go like a candle blown out in the wind, and she did,” Banu says. Banu and Peter’s journey to Nelson is rife with tales of derring-do. Banu had been sailing alone in the Mediterranean, with just her little dog Ada for company, before deciding to head across the Atlantic. The trigger was a series of bad events, including Ada almost dying. “The dog fell 22 metres off a wall in Greece and was badly injured, so there I was, all by myself with a broken dog.” Banu flew Ada to the US for what ended up being multiple surgeries before she went into canine rehab in Connecticut. Banu returned to Corfu to collect her boat.
“It was November and I sat there thinking, ‘which way am I supposed to go’?” Going back home was defeat, so she sailed on to Italy, Spain and then Gibraltar where Peter, from Christchurch, had arrived while skippering a boat headed for Sydney. “We went out to dinner and he never went home. The owners of the boat he’d been on had to find another skipper.” They had known each other only 10 days when they decided to head off together across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and then up the US eastern seaboard to Cape Cod. They picked up Ada in Connecticut and then sailed back to Turkey where they spent the next three years. But the US beckoned again, so off they went, adventuring inner seaways before freighting the yacht to Seattle, and enjoying the vastness of Alaskan waters before disaster struck. Peter, almost choking to death, was diagnosed with stage four head and neck cancer. Intense and horrible treatment followed, then remission, a recurrence of the disease, and more treatment. The boat was by then in southern California, Covid was on the horizon and Peter wanted to return to New Zealand.
“Everyone told me he was too ill to sail this far, especially as all the countries in between were closed.”
Banu was confident in her own ability to manage the yacht, even though Peter was not in great shape. En route, French Polynesia and Fiji opened to visiting yachts so they were able to stop before sailing to New Zealand in late 2020. Peter, who refused to believe the specialists’ earlier words he would be dead within three months, needed treatment on arrival in Opua, and opted for Christchurch. They sailed there. “On the way Peter got really, really sick. There was an ambulance waiting for us at the dock in Christchurch.” A large growth had burst and Peter was bleeding internally, to the point of near-death. He believes his otherwise good health has been a factor in surviving near-impossible odds. “I’ve never smoked, I hardly drink and I’ve lived an active life. I’ve lived aboard boats for a fair chunk of my life.” Banu says Peter convinced her to come to Nelson while they were in the Marlborough Sounds recently. He has fond memories of the area, having chosen Nelson as a preferred port of entry when sailing back and forth across the Pacific. The pair were preparing in mid-November for another adventure, but the imprint Nelson has made means they’ll be back.
To read more about Banu and Peter’s journeys, visit: denize2.com/banupeterada
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