Email This Page to a FriendPreview: “Good News” from Tom Robinson About MAIWAR on Panawina Island
January 21, 2024
Tom Robinson has been well-beyond the reach of any modern communication as he weaved his way through the Louisade Archipelago of Papua New Guinea (PNG) on a local trading vessel.
He was headed to remote Panawina Island, 190 miles from mainland PNG, where there is no electricity and no internet or phone service. According to the cryptic communications he had received from locals in PNG while he was still at home in Australia, MAIWAR had washed up onshore and was in decent shape.
Tom was going to be out of touch for a few weeks, so when I received a message from his shore team (Mum and Dad) that Tom wanted me to help communicate something important to those following his adventure, it came as a surprise.
Tom arrived on Panawina Island with wood, glue and tools, only to find MAIWAR in much worse condition than he had hoped. His parents recounted their brief conversation with Tom that he managed to make from a nearby island: “Before washing ashore, MAIWAR must have spent some time crashing on the reef that borders this group of islands, because a two-foot section of the bow is gone and the cabin has been mostly torn away”.
MAIWAR was designed and built with the utmost of skills. She was robust and seaworthy, and she brought Tom thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean. The capsize off of Vanuatu in the Coral Sea was caused by a moment of human error from a capable captain (leaving the hatch open and susceptible to a rogue wave on a calm day). The design of the boat and the flotation he carried aboard coul have allowed a self rescue if an 856-foot 14-story cruise ship had not arrived for a rescue. But no boat is a match for pounding on a reef upside down. The fact that MAIWAR was still afloat after such a beating is yet another testament to the capability of these well-designed small boats.
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