A 1-month charter to the sub Antarctic Antipode Islands south of New Zealand, filming the first sunrise of the new Millenium and broadcasting it with an Inmarsat B directly onto the Internet sending a message to 60.000 people as the first rays of the sun hit the decks.
The big day, after a 7 year building process, Tiama is Launched at Orama’s Marina in Auckland, about 150 well wishers were present, including my mother who spoke some nice words and broke a bottle of bubbly over the bow, may she sail safely and happily,
Tiama spend the southern summer working amongst the New Zealand sub Antarctic islands as support vessel for kayaking and photographic expeditions.
Tiama sailed from Australia to participate in a peace flotilla against plutonium fuel shipments through the Pacific. Tiama was one of 8 sailing boats from New Zealand and Australia sailing out into the mid Tasman in February 2001 to form a symbolic chain of protest and to promote a nuclear free Tasman. This was followed by a months tour to key southern ports of Australia for Greenpeace.
February 1999 – 5 week charter from Ushuaia to the Antarctic Peninsula, acting as a logistics support vessel for the Young Australian Antarctic Expedition during their successful attempt to climb Pilchner Peak in the Antarctic Peninsula.
Tiama’s skipper Henk Haazen spend 6 weeks as the mate on the 73 foot expedition sailing vessel Pelagic Australia in an attempt to sail true the North west Passage over the Top of Canada and Alaska from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, due to unusual heavy Ice conditions we had to turn back half way true, it was a scouting mission, laying the ground work to take Tiama through this passage in the near future.
The most fascinating trip of this season was spending a month in the middle of winter 2014 in NW BayCampbell island as support vessel to a NIWA Souther Right whale research program, this population had not been studied for 25 years, we managed to obtain lots of identification photographs combined with 24 biopsy samples greatly…