Port Pegasus, Stewart Island. This southern most harbour in New Zealand offers shelter from all winds. Here with gun and line, one could live off the land in grand style. The narrow South entrance can be seen with the Pigeon House.
The chartered Search and Rescue plane piloted by Captain Poole departs. Some of the warps used to trail astern can be seen on the deck.
Unlike the situation in New Zealand, no regulations whatever restrict Australian yachtsmen from sailing deep sea, and while I believe in thorough preparation I feel that once I leave the imagined safety of society ashore, I am on my own. Sending a Mayday just did not occur to us. When extracts of a recorded interview with the NZBC were later broadcast througout New Zealand it appeared that I was dismayed that the search had been started. I was, but only because of the possibility of accident and expense to the searchers. As it happened the R.N.Z.A.F., controlling officer was interested in our movements at the time and appeared in no way put out by the false alarm. Good experience in that area, he pointed out.
We were encouraged by Captain Poole to remain where we were until conditions abated and not to risk a trip to Bluff with the winds, recorded at Centre Island lighthouse blowing in excess of 60 knots. We watched their efforts to take off with great anxiety. Disturbed and guilty that we had precipitated a search in which the lives of these cheerful men had been risked, we worked on, soberly considering the value of a radio transmitter.
Even without sending out a Mayday we had by the very use of a set which had subsequently failed in transmission, started an operation in quite bad weather in which so many were involved.
While I counsel no reader to disregard the value of a radio, I personally will avoid all contact with shore stations from now on and rely entirely upon my own resources. With the exception of the attempts made by technicians to improve the quality of transmission, the radio has not since been used to contact the shore. We are equipped with an efficient lifeboat transmitter with which we intend to salvage ourselves from the ultimate disaster, and I intend to use the radio transmitter, only in the case of needing medical advice-an international radio service. This of course, presumes a first class medical locker is carried aboard.