My life in sport: Shaun Quincey

Shaun Quincey. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Early next year Aucklander Shaun Quincey will undertake the biggest challenge of his 24 years, rowing solo from Australia to New Zealand.

It's an ambitious goal but Quincey has every reason to believe he will be successful because as a boy he heard the tales about his father Colin making the journey.

Quincey snr made history in 1977 by completing the first successful solo Tasman crossing from New Zealand to Australia. To this day he remains the only person to complete the journey solo.

Following in his father's footsteps, Quincey will depart Australia in January 2010, rowing the treacherous Tasman Sea without any assistance.

He will battle a distance of over 2200km in 10-20m swells and one of the most hazardous seas in the world.

The epic adventure is expected to take around 50 to 70 days (his father took 63 days and seven hours).

His father's boat was named Tasman Trespasser and Quincey thought it fitting to name his expedition Tasman Trespasser II.

In completing the journey, Quincey hopes to raise funds and awareness for the New Zealand Surf Life Saving Association.

How did this mad idea come about?

Well in 1977 my father was the first person to row the Tasman Sea and I guess ever since then I've been brought up with stories of his feat, so I was fortunate to have that sort of bred in to me - the idea of adventure.

I've always thought about doing the trip myself. I guess after I saw the kayakers complete the trip that was the point when I started setting things into action.

Fourteen months ago I started working fulltime on the project, and it's taken me this long to get it all ready.

Physically and logistically, it's such a mammoth undertaking - what have the last 14 months entailed?

Earlier on, I put together an advisory board of experts in each and every field and just combined all their opinions and experience and tried to put together the best and safest programme possible.

But I've had to manage everything from design and the build of the boat, to finding sponsorship and that sort of thing, as well as do the training and that all by myself, so it's definitely been full on.

You have one of the best possible advisers in your Dad - the only other man to have done what you're attempting to do - how much has he been involved with this?

Dad lives in Darwin, so he hasn't seen the boat or anything like that. But I'd say Dad has been a really good mental coach for the trip. He had to deal with a lot more loneliness and lack of communication and things than I'm going to have to deal with.

He just sort of left and didn't talk to anyone for 63 days. Whereas I can talk to people on my satellite phone and have access to email.

He's preparing me for the trip in terms of what he had to prepare for and I think it's been a good motivator and has been able to give me all the right set of skills and given me an expectation of what I am going to have to deal with if things go a bit pear-shaped.

He must think you've got it easy with all the technology available nowadays.

Yeah, he does. He sits there and looks at my boat and says 'oh well that's 600kg lighter than my boat was' and a few other things like that. So even if I do beat his time I think he'll have one up on me.

Has it been a case of the more you've trained and planned for the journey, the more you've appreciated the weight of what your Dad has achieved?

Yeah, definitely. I think you always look at the things in retrospect and think 'could I do it again?'

But at this stage I don't know if I'd do it again, because it's so much to go through and so much sacrifice and I haven't worked for a year, so it's so much to go through.

But it's also a great thing acting on your dream and seeing it all come together is really exciting.

How do you go about training for such an effort?

It's obviously not like training for a 2000m rowing race or an Olympic rowing event or anything like that.

It's more about getting your mind in the right place to get up every day and row for 10 hours. You have to make that seem as normal as possible.

Earlier in the year I attempted to break a record for rowing 1000 kilometres. I broke the world record for 500 kilometres and I ended up sort of falling apart at 809kms.

That trained me to deal with the sleep deprivation, I rowed for 100 hours and I slept for nine. I just wanted to see what happened to my body over that period of time and how to manage it.

So I've learned heaps from that and applied more training and more specificity to my training after that event.

And what does happen to your body after 100 hours of rowing?

My pec sort of fell off my chest a little bit. I tore my pec muscle. So that happened and I wasn't really managing my sleep properly - I just stayed awake for far too long, so I learned from that and have been able to apply that to a few more things.

Your father rowed from New Zealand to Australia, why are you doing it vice-versa?

The main reason is it hasn't been done yet. Australia to New Zealand hasn't been crossed solo yet and New Zealand-Australia has been done a couple of times.

So I thought I'd just complete the journey. He goes there, I come back and then none of my kids will have to do it.

When you were a kid were there any sports you fancied yourself as a future star in?

I played rugby until last year, but never really to any great level. But I've been racing surf boats with surf lifesaving for about 10 years and I've won a couple of national titles racing surf boats.

Who was your childhood hero?

I always looked up to people like Sir Peter Blake and Grant Dalton, and also my own father. The maritime explorers of this world I've always sort of admired in terms of what they've achieved and their tenacity and the size of the projects they had to pull together.

Both in terms of the business and logistical side of things and the physical demands of it all.

Are you planning even more adventures beyond the Tasman crossing?

I wouldn't go as far as to call myself an adventurer, it's something I've always been interested in, so I guess you could say I'm a bit of an enthusiast. If the trip is a success though and I make it across the Tasman, I'd like to organise a race across the Tasman, there's the Atlantic race, the Indian Ocean race and I don't see any reason why we can't race across the Tasman as well.

So that will be the next step, but we'll just tick this box first.

For information on Quincey's adventure visit www.tasmantresspasser.com