“If you’d told me a month ago that we’d place fourth overall at the Australian Women’s Keelboat Regatta racing FAIR WINDS I’d have said you were dreaming. Perhaps I still am.”

But the price of his adventures had ultimately to be paid by others, in the succession of families he created, then broke apart; and many of his actions brought him into conflict with the feelings of friends and contemporaries. We may legitimately ask ‘was it really all worth it?’

During last week’s phone call he very excitedly told us about two of his most recent reads. He’s awarded “Greatest Book Ever” to Small Is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher and “Most Favourite Book” to Henry David Thoreau’s Walden or Life in the Woods.

Sal and Mark - Editors of SWS - walk you through what’s to be undertaken in the 8 weeks prior to departure.

At no point up until now has it seemed unusual to send a rowing boat half way around the world to an unfamiliar, developing country, only to row it back home. But now I understand; it puts a smile on my face.

In many ways ocean racing has become a monoculture. To succeed you must be skilled and tough and rich, but for most owners with a realistic chance of victory, the broader values, ambitions and motivations of the founders of the event have disappeared amid the ruthless need for a trophy.

“The final tally - twenty two years dreaming, three years courtship, four months work, six dozen beers, 40 pies, 2 sanders, five rolls of sand paper, fourteen brushes, twelve rollers, two pairs of overalls, one iPhone dropped twice from the scaffold, much profanity, lots of advice, unexpected help from great people and in the end a beautiful boat.”

Peter Warner may have won line honours in three Sydney to Hobart Races and narrowly missed a fourth by less than a minute but perhaps he was better known for his rescue of 6 Shipwrecked,Tongan teenagers.

When an ageing farmer took archaeologist Bob Sheppard aside and pointed high into the rafters of his old hay shed, the history lover could not quite believe his eyes.

Having spent all his summers on the Bellarine Peninsula Oscar Perri assumed Queenscliff to be the natural home of the famous Couta boat…Turns out, where there’s wood, there’s a story worth following.

With a couple of recent “barn finds” of Tums with excellent provenance and the legendary YVONNE due to emerge out of the shed after an exhaustive restoration, the class is ready for another growth spurt.

In many ways the post-war wooden, Southern Australian Cray Fishing boats are ideally suited to become cruising vessels. Listen to a man who has actually lived the dream and dodged the pitfalls.