Lessons in rigours of Southern Ocean

By ROBIN BAILEY

The classroom is the 15m (50ft) steel yacht Tiama and the teacher is Henk Haazen. Both are rugged seafarers who have logged thousands of ocean miles.

Today the boat-skipper combination is beginning a new phase of an adventurous life that began with the launch of the yacht in Auckland in 1997. Aboard Tiama on a passage from Auckland to Wellington are three students. They make up the first intake of trainees who will sail with Haazen to gain internationally recognised sailing qualifications.

Coastguard Boating Education this year completed an arrangement to teach the Royal Yachting Association courses here. There are now six accredited RYA sailing schools in New Zealand, with Haazen's Coastal and Offshore Sailing School the newest - and the only one that adds a truly practical dimension.

"We'll do all the theory the courses require," Haazen says. "But we will give the students the opportunity to sail the yacht, get to grips with the navigation and communication equipment and make daylight and night-time passages. It's one thing to interpret a chart in the classroom. It's another to helm the yacht entering port in the dark and getting to grips with the chart and the lights.

"Actually doing it at sea and being in command will give our students an edge that no amount of time in the classroom can achieve."

Tiama is due in Wellington on Monday and will sail for Bluff with a new batch of trainees on Wednesday, with stopovers in Akaroa and Port Chalmers.

The sailing school will offer the practical courses from the RYA syllabus, including Competent Crew, Day Skipper and Coastal Skipper certification. Cost of the five-day teaching cruises is $1400 and Tiama can take five trainees at a time.

Haazen sees the training programme as an excellent adjunct to Tiama's charter work in the Southern Ocean, particularly servicing Department of Conservation parties to the Auckland, Campbell and Antipodes Islands. The ship has also carried scientific parties to the sub-Antarctic islands and completed filming assignments in the area. The yacht operates in southern waters from November to April and in between charters will take training courses through Foveaux Strait and around Stewart Island.

Now based on Waiheke Island, Haazen came to New Zealand in 1985 with his wife Bunny McDairmid, crewing on the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior. They were having dinner ashore with Bunny's parents when the ship was blown up by the French. Had they been on board asleep they would have died in the explosion, as the blast went through their cabin.

The dream to build a yacht that could safely operate in Arctic and Antarctic waters was something Haazen had nurtured for years. It took 10 years to become reality. He approached Alan Mummery to design a boat in steel with a round bilge and lifting keel and rudder.

Mummery's million-dollar estimate of the cost of building the yacht in a professional boatyard did not deter the would-be polar explorer.

He worked for boatbuilders and developed his welding skills before hiring an abandoned Grey Lynn factory in April, 1991. Seven years later the yacht was launched and it is a tribute to the sailor-builder that Tiama was built to Lloyds standard and operates under the Safe Ship Management system with an unlimited vessel (worldwide) certification. Cost: $500,000.

In August 1998 Tiama made her first ocean voyage to the Kermadecs as a sea trial. Since then her log records a series of successful cruises and expeditions:

November-December 1998: A 32-day 5000-mile non-stop charter across the Southern Ocean from New Zealand to Ushuala, Argentina, rounding Cape Horn a year to the day after her launching.

February 1999: A five-week charter from Ushuala to the Antarctic Peninsula, as logistics support vessel for the Young Australian Antarctic Expedition.

February-March 1999: A 32-day charter through the Chilean Islands around Cape Horn to Puerto Montt.

June-July 1999: A seven-week, 7200-mile voyage from Puerto Montt to Cairns across the Pacific with stops in Easter Island, Pitcairn, Cook Islands and Fiji.

August-October 1999: A three-month charter along the Great Barrier Reef.

December-January 1999/2000: Charter to the sub-Antarctic Antipode Islands, filming the sunrise of the new millennium.

December 2000-April 2001: Sailed from Australia as part of the peace flotilla against plutonium shipments through the Pacific.

This was followed by a tour of key southern ports of Australia to support the Greenpeace nuclear-free Pacific campaign.

April-August 2003: Sailed to Papua New Guinea working for Greenpeace on the Bamu River to try to stop illegal logging.

December 2003-March 2004: Southern summer in the sub-Antarctic as support vessel for DoC and Niwa research programmes.

As Tiama sails for Bluff to begin another programme in the Southern Ocean, Haazen is confident the addition of a sailing school to his yacht's busy life will add a new dimension for himself as instructor as well as the trainees who join him aboard.

* For information - CBES/RYA courses or contact Neil Murray on 0800 40 80 90