Design, Build, Row. How to Cross the Pacific.
We get a few interesting emails in our inbox over the course of a week here at SWS. They are usually about an ongoing restoration project, or a custodian wanting to sell a much-loved vessel. Occasionally they are about a voyage undertaken, or a favourite cruising ground.
One such friendly email arrived before Christmas from Tom Robinson, a recently qualified boat building apprentice from Brisbane. It was complimentary about the SWS site, chatty in tone, and then he dropped the bombshell. “My current project is to row solo across the Pacific Ocean in a clinker boat I have designed and built.”
My first reaction was that he must be a crackpot or a dreamer! Do you know how big the Pacific is? You could fit all the landmasses in the world into the pacific and still have enough room left over for another North and South America!
Then I investigated further. Tom is young, yes… But he is skilled and talented and determined and he’s a doer not a talker. He states his ambition very clearly.
“My goal is, first and foremost, to become the youngest person to row across the Pacific Ocean. The current record is held by Sylvia Cook who, at the age of 32, with her partner John Fairfax, became the first people ever to row across the Pacific Ocean. Only twelve people have rowed solo across the Pacific Ocean, only four have departed from South America. I see my voyage as a great opportunity to encourage other people, young and old, to live a more adventurous life. I want to promote a more grassroots approach to voyaging than current societal norms dictate. I would like to demonstrate that anyone with the right attitude can build a simple boat, and with this they can pursue their own adventure. There is no need for technical equipment and massive budgets.”
Tom was born in Brisbane, along with two sisters, delivered a minute before and after him.
Adventure was not a part of Tom’s early years, although his father had sailed offshore, his parents brought him up in a sedentary home. Camping was unheard of in the Robinson household and contact sports were not allowed. Tom spent most of his primary school years in a Tom Sawyer-esque manner. He was part of the last generation of pre-teens to be without social media and mobile phones, instead, weekends and summer afternoons were spent building go-karts, treehouses, skateboards and swings. The epitome of this was his treehouse, purported to be the finest in the ‘burbs. By far the biggest in the neighbourhood, and the only one built entirely without the help of dad, the ‘camphor laurel commune’ was a favourite among the neighbourhood kids, a place to meet, show off, and tell stories. No newly built house was safe from the pilfering hands of Tom and his mates as they scoured the streets to find timber and nails. A new house on the block often meant an extension for the treehouse, excess and extravagance were the order of the day.
The course of Tom’s life changed forever when, at age 12, his family moved to a small suburban home on the banks of the Brisbane River. The camphor laurel commune was ceremoniously disassembled. Now, as far as I know, the only way to fill a treehouse shaped hole in a boy’s heart, is with a boat. Tom soon became the custodian of a little plywood dory built by his father, Tim, a few years previously. Go-karts, skateboards, treehouses and trespassing were all of a sudden replaced with boats, fishing, rafts and rowing. The simple fact that Tom had a rowing boat to use, as opposed to a sailing boat or a motorboat, changed the course of his life forever. Rowing became not just a hobby, but an obsession. Tom rowed his little dinghy every evening, even after rowing to and from school each day. This passion led to Tom’s first real adventure.
At age 14 he rowed 130km solo from Brisbane to the Gold Coast, spending 5 days living in his 13-foot dinghy that he and his father modified for the journey. It was one morning when Tom was 14 that he decided he was going to be the youngest person ever to row across the Pacific Ocean, an ambition he has held onto tight for the past 8 years.
The following year Tom was forbidden by his parents to undertake another voyage on his school holidays. Age 15 seemed a good time to rebel, so he set off one day, unbeknown to his mother and father, with the hope of reaching the Sunshine Coast, by way of the narrow and unexplored Pumistone Passage. For four days Tom battled headwinds and rain on his journey up to Caloundra, he then turned around and spent another four days rowing home, for a total of 200km. Upon arrival he was met by less than enthusiastic parents.
Tom spent his next year exploring the boatyards of Brisbane, working unpaid on his school holidays. During Tom’s final years at high school, work kept Tom very busy, there was always an old bloke who wanted his boat painted, or a new home being built that could use a labourer. Tom also worked as a deckhand aboard a commercial passenger vessel (his first ‘proper’ job).
In grade 12 Tom set out on his most ambitious adventure yet, to row 250km from Tin Can Bay, through the Sandy Straits, to Bundaberg, a journey encompassing, sharks, bar crossings, broken oars and strong wind warnings. “Teen rows with sharks on the Sandy Strait on way to Bundy” was the headline on page 12 of the Fraser Coast Chronicle.
Coming down from the dizzying heights of fame, Tom completed his year 12 certificate, to the amazement of his friends and family. He then moved down to Sydney at the age of 17 to pursue the life of a boatbuilder. Tom spent the first year of his apprenticeship in Sydney, taking full advantage of its world class sailing and boatbuilding heritage. While there, he managed to explore every bay in Sydney Harbour. Tom moved back to Brisbane to concentrate on wooden boat restoration. For the remaining three years of his apprenticeship Tom was without a spare minute, working full time, building and restoring his own boats, competing in offshore yacht races and travelling overseas.
In 2019 Tom travelled to PNG, exploring the diverse culture, amazing eco-systems, and boatbuilding of one of the last frontiers. Then in 2020 Tom flew to the remote Marquesas Archipelago in French Polynesia, where he crewed on a yacht to Tahiti, stopping at the idyllic Tuamotus en-route. This was the realisation of a lifelong dream to follow in the footsteps of figures such as Gauguin, Melville and Heyerdahl, just a few of Tom’s heroes. During these years Tom amassed many nautical miles in offshore yacht races and boat deliveries up and down the east coast of Australia.
MAIWAR the boat he has designed and built to cross the Pacific represents the culmination of years of thought about the ideal ocean rowing vessel. Her lines are based on those of the whaleboats that accompanied whaling ships that frequented the Pacific in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Although she features traditional lines, she is an extremely safe vessel that is self-draining, self-righting, and in theory, unsinkable. The vessel is built of plywood and modern epoxy glues to form a lightweight and strong monocoque hull. She is built to exacting standards and should be able to cope with even the roughest weather the Pacific Ocean can throw at her.
Tom aims to row across the breadth of the Pacific Ocean from South America to Australia, a distance of over 8,000 nautical miles. He thinks he will spend about 250 days at sea. The journey will consist of four separate legs, with stops in between each to re-supply and experience the cultures and biodiversity of some of the world’s most isolated and beautiful islands.
Peru to Tahiti
Tahiti to the Cook Islands
The Cook Islands to Tonga
Tonga to Australia
So, with MAIWAR soon to be shipped to Peru the adventure is almost ready to begin.
If you’re the sort of person who believes that this kind of project is important in setting an example to young Australians of what might be possible, then there are a few ways to support Tom.
Most obviously you could go straight to his GoFundMe page
Or sign up on his website to receive updates
Or perhaps you could help find a buyer for his lovely little 87 year old Gaff Cutter ARANA
Whatever you feel about the risks and rewards of such an adventure, I for one, will be cheering Tom on, every pull of the oars!
UPDATE!
Just after we went “to press” we received this update. Click on the picture below to read about MAIWAR’s latest news.
