Sydney Hobart race veteran dies in yacht capsize
Celebrated Australian yachtsman Peter Warner dies after a capsize on the northern NSW coastMultiple Sydney Hobart Yacht Race line honours winner Peter Warner has died after his boat capsized while crossing the notorious Richmond River bar at Ballina earlier this week.
The 90-year-old and his crew were flung into the water yesterday while crossing the bar on the incoming tide. One person made it ashore.
According to Marine Rescue NSW, Warner’s boat, the 28-foot Evergreen, was transiting along the NSW coastline and had logged on with rescue services. It is believed the boat had sailed up from Yamba with
Marine Rescue NSW said a duty radio operator in the unit’s radio tower, on the northern wall of the bar, witnessed the incident. It said it believed both people on board the stricken yacht had been wearing life jackets.
The Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, which ruins the annual Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, said Warner had died “doing what he loved best”.
“It is with great sadness that we mourn the passing today of an internationally celebrated Australian sailor and a close friend of the club,” CYCA said in a statement posted on social media yesterday.
“Peter Warner was an exceptional blue water yachtsman and won the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race three times aboard his yacht, Astor, during the 1960s.
“An accomplished author with a passion for the ocean, he is perhaps best remembered for his rescue of six shipwrecked teenage castaways in Tonga in 1966.”
Warner, in the area while on a commercial crayfishing trip, discovered a group of six teenage boys who had been marooned on the deserted Ata Island for more than a year.
The boys were jailed as soon as they returned to Tonga because they had stolen the boat on which they were shipwrecked, with Warner compensating the owner to get them out of jail.
CYCA records show the Astor claiming line honours in 1961, 1963 and 1964.
A 97-year-old Warner was featured on Fearless, a series of films looking at Australian seniors who were not slowing down as they aged.
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