The Line Honours Rescuer
Peter Warner with his crew (L-R) David, John, Peter Warner, Luke, Bill, Stephen, Jim Kolo and Mano. January 6, 1968. (John Raymond Elliott/Fairfax Media)
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.
Sadly Peter, one of Australia's most celebrated sailors, died after his yacht capsized in rough seas on the NSW North Coast.
Warner's yacht rolled on the incoming tide on the Ballina bar just before 9am on Tuesday, throwing the 90-year-old and a teenager with him overboard. The 17-year-old managed to drag Warner to shore where a member of the public commenced CPR until paramedics arrived.
He died at the scene. The teenage boy with him was uninjured.
A love of the sea
At just 17 Warner ran away from home and off to sea for a year, rebelling against joining the family business.
His father was Sir Arthur Warner, one of Australia's richest men of his day, and head of Astor Radio Corporation, the country's largest electronic manufacturing companies at the time.
As a teenager he returned home but fled again for another three years when he was just six weeks into a law degree.
Warner served in both the Swedish and Norwegian navies. He learned Swedish and sat for the exams to obtain a Swedish master's ticket.
Eventually, Warner came home and worked for his father for a few years, but the ocean was always calling.
He then spent 30 years living in Tonga and moving around the South Pacific.
An historic rescue
In 1966, Warner discovered a group of shipwrecked Tongan teenagers who were stranded on an island for more than a year and presumed dead.
He was sailing his fishing boat Just David past the Tongan Island on 'Ata when he noticed burned patches of grass on the side of the island.
Six schoolboys had run away from their Catholic school, stolen a fishing boat, and then after eight days stranded at sea due to bad weather landed on the uninhabited island.
"The boys had set up a small commune with food garden, hollowed-out tree trunks to store rainwater, a gymnasium with curious weights, a badminton court, chicken pens and a permanent fire, all from handiwork, an old knife blade and much determination," he wrote in his memoir.
Three Sydney to Hobart wins
At the helm of his yacht Astor, Warner won line honours in three Sydney to Hobart races – in 1961, 1963, and 1964. In 1962 he came second by just one minute.
This article first appeared as a news item on 9News
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EDITOR // Sal Balharrie