Eric Haagh “lives and breathes the water”. The 47-year-old’s love of sailing has taken him around the world, working in Australia, India and on America’s Cup yachts.
Now, he hopes to pass that love on to his 10-year-old son Flynn before it’s too late.
Haagh is living with stage 4 bowel cancer.
“I was diagnosed in May 2024. That was a bit of a wake-up call,” he tells the Herald.
“It’s something that I live with now. It’s something that won’t go away, pretty much, but it’s living with the disease and that’s okay. We’re all living with something.”
Haagh now has chemotherapy every two weeks, though he took some time off treatment this year. In March, he had a perforated bowel and needed surgery to repair it, and to attach a stoma – a bag to collect waste on the outside of the body – to his colon.
“Six weeks after that operation I got married, two weeks after that I went to Europe for six weeks – so that’s a long time this year without any treatment.
“When I got back, we had scans knowing that there’d been no treatment for a long time, that we were looking at what stage I’d be at, knowing that it would have deteriorated.”
However, scans showed no new cancer cells.
“The cells on my lungs have only grown a little bit ... that was a win. We’ll take that.”
Having lost his own father when he was just 12, Haagh knows that without him, Flynn will need positive male role models in his life.
It’s why he’s supporting Big Buddy, a charity that trains up and matches volunteer mentors with boys aged 7-17 who don’t have a father figure in their lives.
Currently, there are 43 boys in Auckland waiting to be matched with a mentor – 86 across the country.
“I grew up without a father,” Haagh says.
“I did have male mentors in my life, good and bad. I think I learned the hard way, I learned what not to do ... it’s a real slow way of learning.
“Big Buddy gives opportunities to boys, and having a great role model or a mentor, which I’ve had in my life, makes a big difference.”
Through his work as the founder of boat management company Marine Concierge and COO of shared-use boat rental company Skipperi NZ, he says: “I figured a way to go and do the stuff I love with my boy.
“He’s only starting to get it now. All his life, he’s like, ‘No, you and Mum do boating’ ... we live and breathe the water. But now he’s seeing why it’s amazing.”
Now, Haagh wants to share that with other young people.
“[It’s] just including them. If the boys want to get out boating and fishing and experiencing what we’ve got, we’ve got the access to do that, we are a big sharing model.
“So all it was, was calling them up, going, ‘Hey, we can do this. Would you like to be included?’ And that’s how easy it was.”
Haagh helped raise $15,000 for the programme at a recent fundraising event, and Skipperi is set to host a Big Day Out event on the water this Sunday for boys on the waitlist for mentors.
He says it’s not only about teaching the boys valuable skills – fishing, boating, safety on the water – it’s about giving them experiences they might not otherwise have.
“Life is about experiences. It’s not about ownership.
“This year, we really just want to show them how beautiful Auckland is, get them down to Motuihe Island, which is only 20 minutes away from here. Hop off the boat, go for a swim, run around on the beach ... then we’re coming back for a barbecue lunch.
“We actually spend twice as long here just mingling before and after, with a little bit of boating in between.”
The charity is looking for more mentors, and Haagh wants to encourage men to give it a go, to help boys like his son in the future.
“If you’re thinking [about helping], that’s who you are. Therefore, you’ve got the first thing, you want to help and you care.
“Then you think, ‘Am I good enough?’ Yes, you are. You don’t have to change who you are ... I’m not changing who I am. I’m just including them. Every boy is different and every boy needs someone like them. And that’s what Big Buddy do.
“Come down and support them, because my son needs your support, and I do.”
Bethany Reitsma is a lifestyle writer who has been with the NZ Herald since 2019. She specialises in all things health and wellbeing and is passionate about telling Kiwis’ real-life stories.