Paul Henry dedicated his final stint hosting his TV3 show to his late mother, saying he had "lost my most important audience member". Video / Newshub
Steering his Cook Islands-registered super-yacht into her home port in Rarotonga for the first time this weekend was a moving experience for popular and controversial TV host Paul Henry.
The 58-year-old broadcaster is "more or less" retired, splitting his time between homes in California, New Zealand, staying with friends inLondon – and the deep blue sea.
He agreed to his first interview for "I don't know how long" with Cook Islands News, sipping a fine rioja on the rear deck of the Olive.
He tends to get in trouble on his interviews: he famously lost his job over laughing at the name of senior Indian politician Sheila Dikshit, and later commenting in an interview about a passerby's "perfect" breasts. But now, after three years out of the public eye, he's got nothing to lose.
Tied up at Rarotonga's Avatiu yesterday, Paul Henry is proud to fly the Cooks flag. Photo / Jonathan Milne, Cook Islands News
Henry reveals the person most amused by his jibe about her name was Dikshit herself who, he says, used to joke about it herself in political speeches.
Over the course of his broadcasting career, he's worked at the BBC in London, and hosted shows in New Zealand, Australia and the United States. He also made a tilt at Parliament for New Zealand's conservative National Party, but was beaten by the world's first transgender MP, Georgina Beyer.
Paul Henry now splits his time between the US, New Zealand and London.
He criticises the US media's reporting on Donald Trump, while acknowledging his own populist appeal. "If you're entertaining, you're a populist," he says.
Sailing the boat into Jersey after its launch, British tourists were coming up and asking, "is this a Brexit protest vessel? That's a Brexit protest flag, isn't it?"
He laughs. "And of course, when you look at it, the Union Jack and then the circle of stars – that's the European Union."
Return to stormy waters
With the Cooks flag flying from the back of his boat, he and Olive arrived in Rarotonga to a gracious welcome from Maritime Cook Islands, who garlanded him with 'ei and took him out to dinner at Trader Jack's. And that brought back memories.
In 1995, as a journalist, he recalls sailing with his close friend, human rights lawyer Peter Williams, to Cook Islands, on their way to confront the French warships to try to stop them detonating a nuclear test at Mururoa Atoll.
"We were ill-prepared, we were gung ho, and we took phenomenal risks on his 53-foot boat.
"Last night, Maritime Cook Islands took us to dinner at Trader Jack's which was where Peter and I sat and strategised. It was a huge adventure.
"We had to try and distract the French, so Greenpeace could get onto the atoll.
"So here we were in 21,000 feet of water, me and one of the crew members get in this 9-foot inflatable, with this huge swell, at night with a 7hp Johnson outboard.
"And there's this huge French patrol boat, and as soon as we leave the boat we're lost in the dark, and the next thing these huge search lights come on …"
It was terrifying, death-defying – but with the headlines brought by that flotilla, they won their fight: that was the last nuclear test in the Pacific.
Henry rates the Cooks flag and registration very highly: he says it opens doors in ports around the world.
Paul Henry's breakfast TV show ended in December 2016. He is pictured with co-hosts Jim Kayes, Hilary Barry and Perlina Lau.
"There has to be a high degree of credibility when you get the ship registered or it causes alerts when you go into different countries. And in registering with Maritime Cook Islands, there were no obstacles placed in our way – I have a very low tolerance for obstacles."
"It's seen as a democratically legitimate country, and they've done everything right as an active participant in the international regulations surrounding the registration of ships."
Sailing the world with Olive's ashes
His 24-metre yacht is named after his late mother, a regular guest on his TV shows in New Zealand, and he carries her ashes with him in a beautiful crystal urn overlooking the bridge and the prow of the yacht.
The "state of the art" yacht was launched last year from the Dutch boatyard where it was built, and has been slowly making it way around the Mediterranean and through the Caribbean, before sailing via Panama to the Galapagos Islands, Marquesas Islands and Tahiti – and this weekend to the yacht's home port in the Cook Islands. Olive leaves today for Tonga.
Olive, with Henry and his crew, will arrive in New Zealand later this year.
