He has capsized twice, almost ran out of water and was pushed off course by heavy winds, but transtasman rower Shaun Quincey is "very confident" he'll arrive in New Zealand next week.
"Although, my confidence has been knocked around a bit a few times over this whole trip," the 24-year-old
said yesterday, day 50 of his voyage.
Quincey left Australia in the Tasman Trespasser II on January 20, in a bid to become the first person to row solo from Australia to New Zealand.
In 1977, his father, Colin Quincey, was the first to row from New Zealand to Australia. But every previous west-to-east crossing attempt has failed.
Australian kayaker Andrew McAuley, 39, died during his bid in February 2007. Quincey says he is likely to hit land in about seven days and is heading for Hokianga Harbour - the same spot his father departed from 33 years ago.
"It's completely a coincidence that it has worked out that way," he said. "It's not the ideal landing spot but it's quite nice and [is] keeping with tradition.
"It's got a very nasty sandbar at the entrance to the harbour so that will be very hard in rough conditions to negotiate my way through.
"I'll have to row through there at the exact right tides with the exact amount of waves and wind and everything.
"It's leaving a lot to luck but we'll just have to try it and give it a crack and just see how we go."
Yesterday morning, the Kiwi adventurer sat about 450km off the coast in line with Piha Beach. With the end in sight, Quincey is looking forward to disembarking from his 7m vessel and relaxing.
"I'm really just looking forward to just letting my guard down," he said.
"When you're out here you're just constantly on watch, you're constantly on edge, you're always prepared for something to go drastically wrong or your boat to flip or lose equipment or something.
"It's that constant feeling of fear, it really drains you. It will be really nice ... to sort of just take a deep breath in and sit down and just chill out. I'm really just looking forward to that, as well as a feed of hot chips."
- AAP
