Rower's porridge diet

Trans-Tasman rower Shaun Quincey still has a liking for cold porridge after he ate it for four days on the trot while battling to make a landing in New Zealand yesterday.

The 25-year-old swam ashore at Ninety Mile Beach on Northland's west coast about midday, after 53 days at sea and with nearly 4000km of rowing under his belt.

The bacon sandwich he tucked into on the beach was the first food he had eaten for nearly two months that had not been prepared on a seven-metre rowing boat tossing in big Tasman Sea swells.

As he grew used to being back on steady, dry land in Auckland today, he said he gave up hot food for the last four days at sea to devote as much time as he could to battling northerly currents which were threatening to sweep him past the top of the North Island.

"I had cold porridge every meal for the last four days because I wanted to get in so badly.

"I thought I was going to miss the North Island and it was just working as fast as I could and eat as fast as I could just to keep rowing," he said.

He said four days of cold porridge had not put him off eating it.

"I don't mind cold porridge. It is not too bad."

Quincey said his fibreglass and plywood, 7.3m boat, Tasman Trespasser Two, came off surprisingly undamaged when he left it to swim ashore through the three-metre surf at Ninety Mile Beach yesterday. After tumbling through the big surf, it came ashore about 100 metres from Quincey with only minor damage.

"It had a broken aerial and broke part of the solar panel off but structurally it was fine. I would row it again tomorrow. I have been through bigger surf than that in the Tasman."

The boat was being brought back to Auckland where he had yet to decide its future.

Quincey's Trans-Tasman feat was the second by a New Zealand rower. In 1977 his father, Colin Quincey, rowed from New Zealand to Australia and the father and son are the only people to have rowed solo across the Tasman.

Colin Quincey's boat was in the Maritime Museum in Auckland and Quincey said it would be nice to see his boat displayed alongside.

"I will probably end up selling it but will see what happens in the next few weeks. It is too early to make decisions on it."

He said he woke today to early morning media interviews from around the world but it was taking time to realise he did not have to get up and row every day.

"Getting up and facing the day was hard. I was in my cabin and some mornings I would wake up warm and dry and cosy and it was okay. It was: 'I don't want to get up and I don't want to get out of here'," he said.

"The actual routine of putting your arms out and rowing was not a problem. The physical exertion did not plague me.

"It was just getting out of bed, getting slammed, having to get dressed, getting thrown across the boat, trying to make your meal when you are completely soaked and you are going to spill your food all over yourself and you are not going to get half of it in your mouth.

"That is what was annoying, having to do stuff which would normally take five minutes would take four hours. That was annoying and it just ate away at you every single day," he said.

- NZPA