Geoff Stone - Ocean Adventurer

Blokes and Boats

I first met Geoff as a marine contractor when he and his faithful black lab ‘Bo’ turned up to disentangle the dinghy rope from my propeller shaft.

The rope had become so tightly packed that my own breathless forays below were insufficient to cut it free. So, well-equipped and with many a year of commercial diving experience behind him, Geoff and Bo made short work of what had proven to be an insurmountable problem for me. (Incidentally, I was so impressed by Bo’s enthusiastic performance as he watched his master below the surface, I decided to get my own black lab!)

Geoff Stone was raised in the Coromandel, where, as a lad he not only whetted his appetite for sailing and diving, but also developed an enduring passion for hunting and surfing.

His earliest memories feature learning to sail in a Z-class in the Firth of Thames and water-skiing behind the inevitable family powerboat.

By the time Geoff had finished school and entered the University of Auckland, along with his schoolmates and members of his own family, Geoff had become an accomplished diver and sailor, and he’d surfed every beach on the peninsula.

After first teaching geography at Gisborne High, where the surf was always up, Geoff and a surfing buddy left for an extended surfing trip around Australia. When he returned with girlfriend Sue, later wife Sue, they decided to give up surfing, and in 1976 bought a 25’ Woolacott called Vanita. This was to be the first of Geoff and Sue’s two jointly-owned ocean-going yachts. Described as a ‘traditionally constructed Kauri carvel hull with a very bluff stern and bow’, Geoff explained that the extra volume this dumpy design allowed gave this popular vessel the reputation as the best offshore-capable small yacht about. (Pre-purchase, the surveyor is reputed to have commented upon her outstanding safety characteristics.)The downside, of course, was that she was more a plodder than a rocket on the water.

During the second half of the 1970s, Vanita safely carried Geoff, Sue and friends to the South Island and around the North Island, with an outstanding tour of the South Pacific an enduring memory. Apart from falling off the boat when idling into a Pacific lagoon, Geoff assures me that nothing bad ever happened on or to this yacht.

Great surfing and diving adventures throughout the South Pacific, as well as wall-to-wall mahimahi and albacore, are among the more outstanding memories associated with this vessel.

Following a rather tough encounter with the weather off the Taranaki Coast, Geoff dreamed up the ultimate vessel design for the style of offshore adventures that he and his friends enjoyed and sought.

Then, together with cousin Moss, who had always been part of their adventures, Geoff and Sue found a yacht architect and built the yacht in a shed at Puriri near Thames.

To fund her construction, Geoff had to dive the oilfields of Southeast Asia where, despite the dangers, he reckoned the work was up with the most enjoyable he’s ever done.

Named Alderman, in recognition of all the great diving experiences they had enjoyed over the years at the Alderman Islands, she was launched in 1982.

Powered by a 50hp Perkins diesel recovered from an abandoned Massey Fergusson tractor, this 40-foot (12.2m) multi-chine steel hull – a modified Alan Mummery design – displaced 16 tonnes when fully laden. Geoff described the way she sailed as ‘like a horse with a lot of spirit, but with a hard mouth’.

And to allow passage through extra-shallow water, Alderman had a centreboard rather than a keel, with several tonnes of lead strategically located to ensure she stayed upright.

Apart from stowage for diving gear, the design of the Alderman included a fully-equipped workshop, storage for two dinghies with outboards, a dive compressor, and nearly half a cubic metre of refrigeration and freezer space. Cold storage was now sufficient to ensure the crew could still choose either roast leg of lamb or crayfish after several weeks at sea.

This also meant no more lost fishing opportunities. With Vanita Geoff had lamented the many missed opportunities encountered while sailing, the lures often having to be pulled because there wasn’t enough storage room to keep more than one fish at a time.

Then, following a couple of great hunting and diving trips to Fiordland, and in the midst of planning the ‘Great South American Adventure’ when Geoff offered the unique opportunity of being part of Michael Fay’s first America’s Cup Challenge in 1986. He ended up working as shore-maintenance manager in Freemantle.

This foray to West Australia led to more work in the oilfields, after which Geoff returned home utterly determined to complete the long-planned and much dreamed of South American Adventure.

With the trip designed in sailing legs, with different paying crew taken on at regular intervals, the money paid in advance enabled Geoff to fit out the Alderman to the most exacting of standards. Thus, the vessel was to easily survive the worst the southern ocean could throw at it.

After departing the Chatham Islands with a freezer full of fresh kaimoana, the highlight of the first leg south – after a first landfall in the Straights of Magellan – was to round Cape Horn.

They then proceeded to explore the myriad inland waterways known as Canales Patagonocos while sailing up the west coast of Chile to Valparaiso. Their anti-clockwise circumnavigation of the South Pacific was finally completed when they made it back to New Zealand via the South Pacific Islands.

Memories of the trip would fill a book. Suffice to say the close encounters with glaciers, wild weather, local flora and fauna, as well as their regular mountain and cliff-ascents, are well recorded in Geoff’s photo albums. He reckons the views from the shore-based forays were often off the planet, and the crew thoroughly enjoyed the rare encounters they had with local people in a sparsely populated land.

On one occasion they were invited to dinner at the Cape Horn naval station. With one of the crew left on board with radio in hand, the team was so enjoying the well-lubricated hospitality that they failed to notice how quickly the weather had deteriorated.

Later on, their first challenge was climbing aboard in the utter darkness of a moonless midnight with wind gusts to 70 knots. That done, they then had to recover the anchor, which proved impossible under the wind pressure, so they decided to cut Alderman free and run for it through the kelp to the safety of the open ocean.

Unfortunately though, the thick kelp wrapped them fast, and even at full revs they were unable to progress. So, taking the bull by the horns, Geoff turned back, picked up revs and, after bumping off the rocks, they managed to escape out to the open sea.

They never managed to recover the anchor, despite several excursions below after the weather had settled, and so the anchor’s still there, tucked away in the cove under Cape Horn.

These days Geoff and partner Andrea live with a great view over Ratcliffs Bay in Whangaroa Harbour.

Geoff has a strong interest in sustainable native forestry, with his own bush block in the Mangamuka Ranges south of Kaitaia. He also does a bit of school teaching, while in his spare time he nets flounder in the harbour or dives for shellfish. As if that’s not enough, he’s also intimately involved in a project to reclaim the Whangaroa Harbour, following too many damaging floods through the region, including – most famously – the regular flooding of local town Kaeo.

He now has a 13-foot (3.95m) Boston Whaler, powered by a long-shaft 25hp Yamaha, as well as two Roger Hall high-performance long-boards.

Apart from teaching his own children, nieces and nephews to fish and dive, Geoff’s primary interest these days remains the surf. In fact, during the interview from which this story was gleaned, Geoff was being kept from his appointment with some great waves at Shipwreck Bay out of Ahipara.

Thanks for sharing, Geoff!

By Steve Radich

- © Fairfax NZ News