{"id":157816,"date":"2025-05-14T06:00:01","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/?p=157816"},"modified":"2025-05-14T08:41:57","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T07:41:57","slug":"bluewater-cruising-through-processing-family-loss-i-knew-i-needed-to-do-something-take-some-action-to-honour-his-memory-i-knew-i-had-to-go-to-cambodia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/cruising\/bluewater-cruising-through-processing-family-loss-i-knew-i-needed-to-do-something-take-some-action-to-honour-his-memory-i-knew-i-had-to-go-to-cambodia-157816","title":{"rendered":"‘I knew I needed to do something, take some action, to honour his memory… I knew I had to go to Cambodia.’"},"content":"All the luckiest kids I know spent their childhoods messing about in boats. They had water-loving parents and garages filled with glassfibre toys, and sailed their dinghies and raced with the wind across bays and lakes at every chance they had. Some grew up and bought boats of their own, while others \u2013 like me \u2013 were grown before the sea called our names.\r\n\r\nThere are lots of ways that people get into bluewater cruising<\/a>, at all ages and stages of life. Some of us begin in the classroom, taking lessons with seasoned instructors, while others find the sea the best teacher and do their learning on increasingly daring passages. From Greece<\/a> to Cape Town and across south-east Asia, these four crews share how they came to live on the sea.\r\n

Bluewater Cruising - Learning By Doing<\/h2>\r\n

Marie, Vernon and Eli Deck\r\nCrowther Windspeed 39 \u2022 Trade Runner \u2022 Indonesia<\/h3>\r\nVernon Deck is a gutsy sailor, a renowned snowsports photographer and a down-to-earth New Zealander whose \u2018Sailing Learning By Doing\u2019 YouTube channel entertains more than 34,000 subscribers every week. Viewers tune in because he tells it like it is, and together with his partner Marie (and new baby Eli), showcases the cruising life in all its guises \u2013 the good and the bad.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_156425\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"Marie, Marie, Vernon, and Eli Deck. Photo: Vernon Deck\/Sailing Learning By Doing[\/caption]\r\n\r\nVernon calls himself \u201ca passionate observer and a seeker of adventure\u201d, but it\u2019s his remarkable self-taught expertise and eagerness to have a go in the first place that has set him apart from the rest.\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019d never sailed a day before I bought my boat, and I thought I\u2019d just teach myself. I went out with my brother in the Broadwater on the Gold Coast (Australia), pulled out the whole genoa in 30-knot winds, nearly rolled the boat over and thought \u2018That\u2019s not how you do it\u2019,\u201d he says.\r\n\r\nHe\u2019d bought a forgiving, solid glassfibre S&S design and he joined club sessions, watched expert sailors, and learnt as fast as he could. \u201cI wasn\u2019t proud of the fact I had no clue, actually I was ashamed of it,\u201d he says. But he was also impatient, so he pushed himself and set out to sea. \u201cThe only way to learn fast is to go out there and give it a crack.\u201d\r\n\r\nThree years of single-handed adventures later he upgraded to the lighter, faster Schiehallion, a John Sayer-designed 37-footer, custom built for the Melbourne to Osaka single-handed race. Deck sailed Schiehallion to Eastern Indonesia, then flew to France, where he fell in love with Marie. He persuaded her to leave Europe for the first time and join him in remote Raja Ampat.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_156424\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"Aerial 'The way to learn fast is to go out and give it a crack' Photo: Vernon Deck\/Sailing Learning By Doing[\/caption]\r\n\r\n\u201cI was interested in Raja Ampat, but not really the sailing part,\u201d says Marie, who hated the childhood sailing classes her grandmother sent her to, and had no experience of living aboard.\r\n\r\n\u201cIn the beginning I just had to accept the role of being the one who was learning,\u201d she says, \u201cI enjoyed it because Raja Ampat is not really a place you sail. We were using the engine most of the time, there was no rough weather and the snorkelling was amazing.\u201d\r\n\r\nFive years on, Marie is now capable of handling their new boat, a 39ft Crowther Windspeed catamaran called Trade Runner, but it\u2019s the freedom of her lifestyle she thrives on.\r\n\r\nThe idea of skipping the formal sailing lessons and setting to sea sooner appeals to the impatient, young sailor in many of us, but as Vernon admits, the lessons never stop. \u201cI\u2019m still learning heaps. I still need to learn, but I\u2019ve just always preferred to teach myself,\u201d he says.\r\n

The Family Passagemakers<\/h2>\r\n

Kim and Dave Lewis\r\nLagoon 450 \u2022 Brave \u2022 Tanzania<\/h3>\r\nFor the Lewises, their circumnavigation began with a faraway dream that had nothing at all to do with the sea. Busy New Zealand business owners with a growing family of youngsters, Kim and Dave Lewis were burnt-out and dreaming of escaping to a life in France.\r\n\r\nUK passports initially allowed easy entry into French provincial life, but when Brexit scuppered those plans, they decided to sail there instead. The tiny glitch was that they didn\u2019t own a yacht, and had never even sailed offshore. So they consulted a seasoned delivery skipper who told them \u201cGo for it\u201d, and soon after started crewing in local evening races and began searching for a boat.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_156427\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"The \u2018We told ourselves we\u2019d just see everything we could\u2019 Photo: The Lewis Family[\/caption]\r\n\r\nWhen you decide to sail from New Zealand, there\u2019s no question of learning along the way. By law, no-one leaves the country until they have proved themselves and their boats seaworthy, so Kim and Dave studied for RYA certifications and upped their offshore sailing hours to comply.\r\n\r\nKim crewed offshore for the first time on a 40-footer sailing from New Zealand to Tonga, while Dave flew to Fiji and crewed for a leg back home. Two years after setting their goal, they moved their four kids onto a Lagoon 450F and sailed away into the Pacific. For Zeffi (10), Prea (9), Chad (7) and Reef (3), it was the start of an adventure that would show them the world.\r\n\r\n\u201cEveryone we spoke to was fairly positive,\u201d says Dave.\r\n\r\n\u201cThey kept saying, \u2018Wow, you\u2019re so brave\u2019,\u201d says Kim. The name stuck and that was what they decided to call their boat. \u201cWe told ourselves we\u2019d just see everything we could on the way around and a whole new world of opportunity opened up.\u201d\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_156428\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"A The Lewis family is happy with their floating apartment. Photo: The Lewis Family[\/caption]\r\n\r\nSix years later they\u2019ve sailed more than 31,500 miles through the Pacific, south-east Asia, and across the Indian Ocean to Tanzania. Yet despite having sailed halfway around the world, these seasoned sailors don\u2019t consider themselves experts.\r\n\r\n\u201cWithout realising it, we\u2019ve become quite good travellers using a sailboat,\u201d says Dave, laughing that the kids see their Lagoon almost like a family car.\r\nWhile the older kids do helm shifts, their hearts are just not in it. \u201cThey are more interested in where we are going than how we get there. The sailing is just a means to an end,\u201d says Kim.\r\n\r\nAs for the boat, both are happy with their \u2018floating apartment\u2019.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt won\u2019t go quite as fast as some boats or point high to the wind, but we\u2019re on a big, safe boat that will get us to the next anchorage,\u201d Dave says.\r\n\r\nWith more than 20,000 miles left before they complete their big trip, Kim and Dave have only a rough plan of what the next few years will hold. But with one teen at boarding school in New Zealand and another leaving the boat soon, Kim admits she\u2019s already focussed on delivering Brave back home.\r\n\r\nArticle continues below...<\/em>\r\n\r\n[collection]\r\n

The Passionate Sailors<\/h2>\r\n

Sandy and Scott Trevethan\r\nSeawind 1160 \u2022 Sea Moon \u2022 Indonesia<\/h3>\r\nI\u2019ve known a few natural-born sailors in my time and, while she came late to it, Sandy Trevethan is definitely one of them. She enthuses about the kinds of rugged sea states and storms that would have most other cruisers cowering in their cockpits, and when Sandy laughs and says it was pretty hairy, you get the feeling that it really was.\r\n\r\nAs a divorced mother of two grown-up boys, Sandy learnt to sail on her boyfriend Scott\u2019s 34ft Lock Crowther Pocket Cruiser, appropriately named Tenacity. In a rapid baptism of fire, she spent her first night at sea in 25-knot winds at the start of a week-long Southern Ocean sojourn from Port Phillip Bay in Melbourne. The boat wasn\u2019t ready and things kept breaking, but Sandy was in her element.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_156429\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"Sandy \u2018Sometimes you\u2019ve got to say \u201cI can do this!\"' Photo: Sandy and Scott Trevethan[\/caption]\r\n\r\nA more daring adventure followed across Australia\u2019s notorious Bass Strait to Deal Island before Sandy and Scott pointed Tenacity north for island time on the Great Barrier Reef. The autopilot broke in 4-5m seas and they had to hand steer in 30-knot winds. But when the sun rose, the dolphins arrived and everything seemed okay. Sandy told Scott: \u201cLet\u2019s keep going, but we\u2019ll need a bigger boat.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey found their dream vessel, a new Seawind 1160 called Sea Moon, which the couple recently sailed from Australia\u2019s Thursday Island to Eastern Indonesia. Then they started their planned five-year-long cruise through south-east Asia.\r\n\r\nFresh from her first 700-mile passage beyond Australia, Sandy admits: \u201cIt\u2019s been a crazy three years.\u201d Before she took the plunge to live aboard \u2013 and marry Scott \u2013 she\u2019d spent almost 50 years with her feet firmly on land.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s a big deal for me psychologically to get into the water,\u201d she says. \u201cI thought I could never live on a boat, but then you meet the right person...\u201d\r\nAlthough she has had no formal sailing instruction, Sandy is driven to push herself. \u201cI had years of hearing \u2018You can\u2019t do this\u2019, and sometimes you\u2019ve got to say \u2018I can!\u2019\u201d\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_156426\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"The The West Papua coastline. Photo: David Bristow[\/caption]\r\n\r\nShe credits Scott\u2019s adventurous ambitions and time spent at the helm of his rudimentary old Crowther catamaran with paving the way for success.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe\u2019d be doing overnight passages, three hours on, three hours off, hand steering and never leaving the helm, and that experience really set me up as a new sailor to just roll with what you\u2019ve got and make it work,\u201d she says.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhen things go wrong, it teaches you how to cope, and that\u2019s when we are at our best. Now we\u2019ve got this great new boat, we feel like we\u2019re living in a luxury apartment.\u201d\r\n

The Circumnavigator<\/h2>\r\n

Baha Pelin and Kym Kierman\r\nTayana 48 Deck Saloon \u2022 Tutkum \u2022 Greece<\/h3>\r\nBaha Pelin\u2019s childhood was peppered with just enough boating adventures to get him hooked. The family had a summer house with a little motorboat to toy with and, in his teenage years in Arlington, Massachusetts, Pelin enjoyed dinghy sailing with Boys\u2019 Club of America.\r\n\r\nStraight out of college, he spent US$4,000 on a 25-year-old yacht, took a Coast Guard Auxiliary night course, and started sailing around the North Atlantic. A few boats and one mid-life crisis later, he flew to the Annapolis Boat Show, ordered a 2007 Tayana 48 to be shipped to Portugal, and started sailing Tutkum around the world.\r\n\r\nHe\u2019s had amazing crew along the way, but the one who mattered most was fellow American Kym Kierman.\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019ve always been a simple-life person, but I had zero idea of what the cruising lifestyle was about,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019d never been on a sailboat until I met Baha.\u201d\r\nYet a lifetime of outdoors adventures allowed Kym to take to sailing with ease, and the couple spent two years cruising from Australia to Eastern Indonesia and Thailand before shipping Tutkum around the Cape of Good Hope to the Mediterranean.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_156430\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"Baha Baha Pelin and Kym Kierman. Photo: Baha Pelin\/Kym Kierman[\/caption]\r\n\r\n\u201cIn the beginning Baha told me what to do and I\u2019d do it; I had no problem with that.\u201d She says she thrived on the challenges of sailing and living off Eastern Indonesia\u2019s remote, idyllic islands.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe constant decision-making, the crazy night sails, the wind and the lightning; that\u2019s the stuff people might hate but I didn\u2019t mind it, it\u2019s all part of the adventure.\u201d\r\n\r\nBut she adds: \u201cI anticipated it to be a lot more luxurious. I\u2019d be saying to Baha, \u2018Oh my God, now what\u2019s broken? Now what\u2019s leaking? How do people find this fun? All we\u2019re doing is fixing things!\u2019 That part was really hard.\u201d\r\n\r\nNow the couple is cruising in the Med, exploring Greece and Turkey where Tutkum\u2019s circumnavigation first began.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe are constantly surrounded by boats, but it\u2019s far more lonely,\u201d says Kym, who misses the easy friendships made in Indonesia\u2019s more remote sailing grounds.\r\n\u201cHere in the Med there are very few cruisers and so many charter boats. In Eastern Indonesia you pretty much knew everyone, and when you dropped the anchor, everyone got together.\u201d\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_156431\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"\u2018I \u2018I wanted to see the world... and I just kept going\u2019. Photo: Baha Pelin\/Kym Kierman[\/caption]\r\n\r\nHaving come full-circle with Tutkum, Baha is reflective too, but says he\u2019s still captivated by where a boat can take him.\u201cMy goal was never to circumnavigate. I wanted to go see the world, to explore, and I just kept going,\u201d he says.\r\n\r\nAlways keen to change the pace, Kym and Baha are planning an extended break ashore. They have dreams of an African RV adventure before returning to sail Greece, Italy and maybe Montenegro or Morocco.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe boat as a means to explore cool places is more important to me than the actual sailing,\u201d says Kym. \u201cSailing is fun and exciting, but when we get to port, it\u2019s like \u2018Let\u2019s get off, let\u2019s go\u2019.\u201d\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\n

\"\"<\/a>If you enjoyed this\u2026.<\/h2>\r\n
\r\n
Yachting World is the world's leading magazine for bluewater cruisers and offshore sailors. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams.<\/em><\/div>\r\n
<\/div>\r\n
Build your knowledge with a subscription delivered to your door. See our latest offers<\/a> and save at least 30% off the cover price.<\/em><\/div><\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n
","excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rob Hamill wasn\u2019t supposed to be in the water that day. Although he was tempted by the gentle cyan waves in the remote Thai anchorage, doctors had treated an infected area on his neck a few days prior and ordered him to stay out of the sea. But his three sons \u2013 Finn, Declan and Ivan \u2013 were knocking about in Ko Roc\u2019s clear water, free diving to impressive depths, pushing each other to new limits. Finn was squeezing the last drops of a bluewater cruising adventure \u2013 along with some precious family time \u2013 out of his too-short visit before returning to Europe to continue his training for the New Zealand Olympic rowing team. The 21-year-old carried the same competitive spirit as his dad and was keen to match his 19-year-old brother Declan\u2019s 30m free dive. Rob, unable to resist, fitted his mask and slipped off the stern of the family\u2019s long-time home, Javelot. Bluewater cruising near a deep drop in remote Thailand The 43ft Fountaine Pajot was anchored on the edge of a deep drop-off in the remote southern Thailand marine preserve and the boys used light weights attached to the anchor line to guide them down into the depths. Close in age and interests, they had grown up aboard Javelot. Rob dove under, watched Finn swim down and spotted Declan kicking off the sea bottom 6m down. When Declan came to the surface, he was gasping for air, briefly dazed from a lack of oxygen. Rob surfaced and took a close look at him as Ivan held him in the water. Suddenly, Rob realized Finn hadn\u2019t surfaced. Jabbing his head under, he saw what no parent ever wants to see: Finn floating lifeless, arms wide like a starfish, 6m down in the deep blue water. \u201cHe\u2019s gone! Finn\u2019s gone!\u201d Rob called out to Declan, Ivan and his wife, Rachel. Finn had blacked out on his ascent and was drifting toward the deepwater drop-off. Rob dove after him and, together with Declan and Ivan, pushed and dragged him to the surface. Declan clamped Finn\u2019s jaw shut on the ascent to prevent him from taking in more water and began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the surface. As his brothers swum him towards the boat, Finn regained consciousness and spoke, but back on board, his condition worsened and he struggled with shallow, painful breaths and a racing heartbeat. Concerned about secondary drowning, inflammation and pulmonary edema caused by water in the lungs, Rob put out a Pan Pan and a request for oxygen on the VHF while Rachel and Finn went ashore in the dinghy to seek help. Thai park rangers arranged for a medical boat which took Finn to the mainland and then on to Ko Lanta hospital, where he was assessed and transferred to another major hospital two hours away. He developed pneumonia due to water in his lungs and spent three days in hospital. Looking back, Rob felt lucky the family had recently watched the free diving movie …Continue reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":447,"featured_media":157817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[139,980],"tags":[1473,1633],"review_manufacturer":[],"acf":[],"introduction":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157816"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/447"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157816"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157929,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157816\/revisions\/157929"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157816"},{"taxonomy":"review_manufacturer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review_manufacturer?post=157816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}