'NEVER BEFORE HAVE I SAILED IN SUCH WILD WEATHER'

When Jeremy Edwards and his sister were hit by a 'weather bomb' en route to Tonga it gave him a new-found respect for his sister's skippering ability

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Sammy, my sister, was ready to go. She couldn’t wait to put on her skipper’s hat and head off on a great adventure. It was 1998, when offshore sailing was off-grid, whether you liked it or not. There were no fancy chart plotters and weather apps to tell us the conditions; we relied on the basics: radar and depth sounder and the SSB radio for weather updates. Sammy plotted our course hourly on a paper chart. Back then, we simply had to rely on long-range, low-tech information.

Standing on the pontoon saying our goodbyes in Auckland harbour, four of us made a solid crew. I was the least experienced. My sister had worked for Ocean Youth Club, sailing 70ft offshore yachts around Britain with youngsters on board. Her then husband, Mike, who was a Kiwi, had done the same. Crew Bruce was an experienced offshore sailor who had crossed to the Pacific Islands on a previous occasion. I was an enthusiastic river sailor, just a novice.

A SENSE OF FOREBODING

As the lines were untied from the pontoon and taken on board Sammy’s 39ft, steel-hulled Denis Ganley, Pacific Express, Mike’s mother, Mari, said from the quay: ‘I hear there’s a storm coming.’

Neither my sister nor Mike said anything. I assumed Mari must be joking. I thought she was trying one last trick to stop her little ducklings from going out to sea and out of sight of land for the next 10 days. But looking round, I smiled. The harbour was flat calm, in fact mill-pond calm. Down below all was in order, everything stowed away. And quaintly hanging in mini hammocks from the saloon ceiling were two baskets of fresh fruit; oranges, apples, kiwis and green bananas that would ripen en route to Tonga. The hanging fruit was not even swaying because the boat was as steady as if she were in dry dock such was the stillness of the morning.