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What would you do if your dream of sailing around the world was crushed by a pandemic and you ended up stuck in a country at the bottom of the Pacific?
If you were Elana Connor, you’d seize the chance to sail around New Zealand while raising money for foster kids so they have a better life than you did when you ended up in state care.
The US solo sailor arrived at Whanga¯rei’s Town Basin yesterday near the end of her figure-eight around Aotearoa.
So far she has raised just under $35,000, which will pay for young people in state care to go on a potentially life-changing 10-day voyage on the tall ship Spirit of New Zealand.
Connor is motivated by her own experience which saw her run away from a violent home at the age of 15, attempt suicide, end up in hospital and become a ward of the state, living in a series of institutions and group homes until she was 18.
Although academically gifted and a keen athlete, she couldn’t fulfil her dream of going to university and — without a parent or caregiver to drive her to training — she couldn’t even join a swimming club.
Later Connor took up sailing and, almost by default, became a solo yachtie just over three years ago.
She hatched a plan to sail the world with her canine first mate Zia — “she’s a rescue, like me” — in a 10m boat called Windfola. She left San Francisco in May 2019. It was going fine until Covid hit.
Just as New Zealand went into lockdown Connor learnt her grandmother had hit her head in a fall and was in hospital.
“I was torn. Here’s this person who’s given me so much, the one adult who’s always stood beside me, unable to care for herself. She always wanted me to go out and chase my dreams and here I was doing it. Do I leave that and go back to be with her? But I knew she would tell me, if she could, to stay.”
After arranging care for her grandmother, Connor realised she’d have to find something really worthwhile to do with her time in New Zealand.
She was looking for volunteer work on crowdfunding website Givealittle when she stumbled on someone walking from Cape Re¯inga to Bluff to raise money for
youth in foster care.
While she couldn’t circumnavigate the world, Connor realised she could circumnavigate New Zealand while raising funds for Voyce Whakarongo Mai, an advocacy group for children and young people in foster care which makes sure their voices are heard.
“If I’d had that my outcome would’ve been so different,” she said.
Money raised during Connor’s journey will be used to send foster youth on 10-day sail and leadership training voyages aboard the Spirit of New Zealand.
The skills learnt on board were the very things that were needed to enter adulthood successfully, she said.
The last major leg of Connor’s trip was from New Plymouth to O¯ pua.
With few safe anchorages on the west coast she sailed from Taranaki to Cape Re¯inga in a non-stop 65 hours, then fulfilled a bucket-list wish by anchoring near the Cape and watching the sun rise at Tom Bowling Bay.
“It was an amazing moment,” she said.
During her stay in the Bay of
Islands she gave talks at O¯ pua and Russell boating clubs.
School holidays meant she didn’t get a chance to speak at Far North schools or meet many foster youth, but she hopes to make up for that in Whanga¯rei.
As well as pushing the message that young people in care deserve the same kind of opportunities that children in stable homes enjoy — “that their dreams matter, and they can do incredible things” — she also wanted to encourage people, girls and women especially, to take up ocean sailing.
Despite sailing solo for the first time just over three years ago, she had now clocked up 13,000 nautical miles (24,000km) alone across the Pacific.
“It’s been a big learning curve for me. There’s a perception you have to be a lifelong sailor and practically a certified diesel mechanic — I’m neither of those things, but somehow I’ve made it.”
About 6500 children and youth are currently in foster care in New Zealand, of whom 550 are in Northland. Voyce has offices in Kaikohe and Whanga¯rei.