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Here’s more than mere hay stored in the barns on Ian and Laurel Aitkens’ 50-acre property at Purangi. As the heavy steel door rattles open and sunlight floods the shed, a most singular vessel emerges from the gloom looking like an ungainly giant insect re

carbon fibre tubes for the mainsail’s wishbone boom.

The first launching operations took three people four hours but Ian expects that to improve greatly with experience. “One person can step the mast using the boom and electric winch and, after that, the boat just unfolds.”

He also built the four-wheeled, braked trailer. It and the 1.5-tonne multihull tow easily behind the Aitkens’ Lexus E 300.

Ian bought a secondhand 10hp four-stroke Yamaha outboard, overhauled and installed it in a locker alongside the main hatch where it can be lifted and deployed with a small block and tackle arrangement.

Another extra added to the boat was an electric outboard motor mounted on a bracket on the deck area. “It swivels through 360 degrees and gives you two engines about three metres apart – she spins on a dime,” he says.

hese are the thoughts of a tired, storm-lashed T mind on a small vessel in a big ocean. Yet these were the very words used in the first few days of a six-year voyage from London to Westport via the Suez Canal by one of New Zealand’s earliest and toughest solo sailors. Adrian Hayter completed his voyage in the Albert Strangedesigned 32-foot gaff-rigged yawl Sheila II and in 1959 he published a book about his journey – Sheila in the Wind. It is a tale that stands out from others of its kind mostly because of its author, and his ability to think and to write.

Before sailing entered his life Hayter had dedicated himself to a military career. As a young man he attended the prestigious Sandhurst Military Academy in the UK and distinguished himself in his second day in action in WWII while taking a stronglyarmed Japanese defence post in Burma. Only nine of the 60 men in his Gurkha company survived the attack and he received a Military Cross and a handful of shrapnel for his troubles.

More than the shrapnel or medals, it was the horror and injustice of war that affected him deeply and while many of his veteran peers took to the bottle, Adrian sought the answers in the sea.

With little sailing experience, he set sail from Lymington, UK for New Zealand via India and faced a steep learning curve on how to handle his ship and how to handle himself. The challenge of sailing solo seemed to strip him back to his essential being and it was there that he sought his answers.

Exhaustion and fear were a near constant in his voyage against the prevailing winds. As such essentials as self-steering had yet to be invented Hayter repeatedly drove himself until he dropped.

There are some harrowing accounts in the book, yet none so stark as the voyage from Singapore to Australia through