The small hours of 7 July, 1994, were ink black in more ways than one; for Askoy, myself and, as it turned out, for Belgian maritime history.
I'd singlehanded Askoy, a 60-foot, steel double-ender from Fiji, cleared customs at Opua, and set out to rejoin my family at Port Taranaki. The weather forecast was for 30 knots NW, a good sailing breeze and a good angle for the course to New Plymouth.
I rounded Cape Reinga near noon and turned Askoy's rusty bows towards Taranaki.
By dark, Askoy was labouring heavily in about 50 knots of due westerly; her Gardner diesel and sole jib, which I flew rigged as a mainsail, strained to the max. Watchful of the land close aboard to the east, I was trying to ease her as far west as I could, and was just managing to lay the rhumb line towards home.
Sometime that night the jib tore to shreds with a crack that shook her rigging and my already jangled nerves. By now the wind had increased considerably – later media reports varied between 130-150 knots, but I think the 80 knots recorded at the Auckland Harbour Bridge was closer to reality.
Askoy was holding her own against the storm until the engine started to overheat. I lashed the wheel hard a-weather and dove below to investigate. The cooling water circulating pump had lost its prime and I lay alongside the hot engine in my wet weather gear for several hours, frantically manufacturing a backup system through the bilge pump.
There was a huge crash on deck and my first thought was that I'd run into something, but, as I leapt on deck to investigate, it was obvious that Askoy was in the outside line of breakers and the crash on deck had been a breaking wave. A seething mass of ugly, broken water heaved in Askoy's lee.
I dived back below, hurriedly completed the emergency cooling pump hook up, rechecked all the hose clamps, and clambered back into the cockpit.
The Gardner chugged back to life and settled to a steady beat and I eased her into gear. Askoy was alive again – maybe we'd both be able to survive the night after all.
After a few minutes I wound her up to 1500rpm, and began making way parallel to the breakers but still several miles offshore.
Big waves roared in from the dark Tasman Sea, smashed against her steel flanks and poured into the cockpit. Rain and spray slashed against my wet weather gear as I stepped the revs up to 1800, ran off a little to get speed up, then tried to bring her bows up into the wind and get her heading offshore.
Each time I tried to gain some westing, the waves knocked Askoy back towards the shore until finally one huge set swept through, smashed against her bow, and she was heading for the land at breakneck speed. Her big rudder couldn't get a grip in the aerated breakers beneath the stern and Askoy, surrounded by a heaving, tumbling mass of water soared beachwards, tracking like a surfboat.
Soaking wet and shivering cold, I clung to her big stainless steel steering wheel as she roared uncontrollably through the night. I remember hoping that I was headed for a sandy beach – if we hit a cliff at that speed we'd end up like a beer can on the southern motorway. All apprehension aside, it was an exhilarating ride; charging through the dark and ultra stormy night, clinging to the wheel for my life.
Eventually Askoy struck the sandy bottom, pivoted on the leading edge of her stub keel, and crashed down heavily on her port side. I remember seeing her big timber main mast splinter and crash over the side and a wall of green water poured over the cockpit coaming and punched off the aft cabin top – just behind where I hung on for dear life.
The receding wave smashed her down on the starboard side and the next incoming breaker smashed her back down to port. Amongst the scrambled messages reaching my brain was one that said; if I somehow hung on, I'd probably survive. I’m sure that steering wheel has 10 very deep indentations where my fingers were wrapped around it.
Each successive wave nudged Askoy a little further up the beach until, eventually, she lay on her port side and the seas slammed into her exposed rump without moving the boat.
It took me some time to make the step from Askoy's tilted deck into the water surging around her. The last thing I wanted was another big wave to roll in and wash her over me. Eventually I made the leap and galloped comically through the surf – a Michelin man in sodden sailing gear and squelching seaboots full of water.
I carried a couple of armfuls of the gear that was floating inside Askoy above the high water mark then started looking for a way to get help. The only exit route seemed to be up the steep sandy cliffs that backed the beach and, to this day, I think I was blown, as much as climbed, to the top.
Away from the exposed beach, I squelched my way through a relatively peaceful pastoral scene; cows were queuing for milking as a watery sun began to shed some light on the day. I dunked my head in a drinking trough to rinse the salt off and trudged eastwards until I'd climbed the last fence and stood on a gravel roadway.
The racket of a stressed two-stroke motor increased in the distance and a young man on a farm bike scrunched to a halt beside me.
"G'day," I said, "I've just stranded my boat on the beach – are there any houses around here?"
"D'you want to borrow Dad's tractor to get it off?" he replied eagerly, as though stranded boats were a daily occurrence thereabouts.
Before the wreck Being driven ashore was the last leg of what had been a fairly stormy journey. Sarah and I had spotted Askoy in Suva during a stopover en route to Japan in our yacht Elkouba and fallen in love with her lovely shape and staunch construction. After an eight-month battle to establish her identity, locate her owners, invalidate a US federal marshall’s arrest warrant for drug smuggling and persuade the Fijian Marine Department to sell her, we’d sailed back to New Zealand in Elkouba and put her on the market to fund Askoy’s refit as a high latitude charter/cargo vessel.
We made one attempt to salvage Askoy, even just to sell the lead ballast, but failed and she looked doomed to end her days on Ripiro Beach.
A few months after she'd hit the beach we fielded an early morning phone call from the director of the Belgian National Maritime Museum who asked if we'd be prepared to give them salvage rights to Askoy. Going on record as being Askoy's last owner had ridden heavily with me and I said I'd be pleased to hand her over to them – provided I could sail in her after she'd been rebuilt.
All went quiet from the Belgian end for a few years after that, but a Save Askoy Foundation, with many influential members, had been formed and fundraising was underway. I put them in touch with Dargaville maritime historian Noel Hilliam.
My next personal contact with the Belgians was in 2005 when two foundation members, Piet and Staf Wittevrongel, visited Askoy and asked to meet Sarah and I.
"You must have thought it was Christmas when you found Jacques Brel's boat in Fiji?" they asked.
"Jacques who?"
Askoy, they explained, had been owned by Jacques Brel, the superstar Flemish singer/songwriter. Many of Brel's songs had been about freedom, the liberty to wander at will as a guest of the wind…and Askoy. Prior to that, she'd been built for Hugo van Kuyk, the Belgian sailor/architect who masterminded the allied landing at Dunkirk during World War II.
The Save Askoy Foundation kept in touch with Noel Hilliam and he decreed that 18 December, 2007, would be the best day, tide and weather-wise, to attempt the salvage. Staf Wittevrongel and Tjerk Pillwell, the foundation's main metalworker, returned to Ripiro Beach where Noel had completed the reams of paperwork and permits needed for the salvage and mustered an armada of bulldozers, earthmoving machinery and a host of local helpers.
First, working with Ripiro Beach Kaitiaki (guardian) Jim Te Tuhi, we removed thousands of toheroa spat which had taken up residence around Askoy's hull, then excavated around her almost down to keel level. After 13.5 years under the sand, Askoy was amazingly intact. The main bulkhead had been punched out by the sea and most of her decks were gone, but her 18m x 6.2m steel hull held its shape and the staunch riveted steel construction which had first attracted me in Fiji and then saved my life during the storm were readily obvious.
The three bulldozers buried themselves in sand and hooked their winches to a 100-tonne breaking strain steel wire rope. Coordinator Tom Newlove gave the signal and three big diesels began to take the strain. One by one the bulldozers were dragged back into the sand then, with a loud crack, the 100-tonne cable snapped.
Throttles were eased and an audible sigh escaped from the crowd of onlookers. The diggers and 'dozers pushed a sand breakwater up between Askoy and the sea to prevent her from getting buried back in the sand and we retired to our tents for a barbecue meal, freshly-speared flounder and a tipple of locally-produced port wine.
A tide came and went and next day Askoy was re-excavated and a replacement cable rove around her keel. Once again the bulldozers buckled down to the task and this time a 100-tonne shackle split; it’s constituent parts disappearing into the soft sand never to be seen again.
The two Belgians, Staf and Tjerk, trudged back down the beach with slumped shoulders, to pass the news to the Save Askoy Foundation members eagerly waiting in their homeland.
"What do you reckon that thing weighs?" Tom asked later. "We pull 100-tonne Kauri stumps out of the swamps all the time….no problem."
"Weeelll….she's about 40 tonne in sailing trim and the wet sand in her could weigh anything up to about 60 tonnes – then there's the suction from the sand."
The next morning, after a tide had been and gone, Askoy was partially reburied – but there was a new atmosphere of determination in the camp. A truck had been dispatched to Whangarei to borrow a heavy ships anchor chain to use around her stern and this time the rusty hull was totally cleared from the sand.
As before, all the water was pumped out from around her and I had to look away while a digger ripped the foredeck off and began to shovel tonnes of wet sand from her interior. Familiar bits of Askoy, fuel tanks and my old EPIRB began to collect on the beach.
When all was ready for the tow, a digger operator reached out with his bucket, rested it against the mainmast tabernacle, and wriggled the boat to break the suction. About 150 people stood at a safe distance and watched as the bulldozers dug deep into the sand, their combined pull striking small sparks where the chain dug into her keel.
Slowly, centimetre by centimetre, Askoy was extracted from her sandy tomb. Waves sluiced around the seaward bulldozer as inexorably, the big hull crept out of its hole to begin its trip back to Belgium.
I was jubilant at no longer being Askoy's last owner and one of her new owners. Staf, grabbed me in an exuberant bear hug. "Askoy is alive once more," he yelled above the bulldozer exhausts.