{"id":444258,"date":"2026-05-25T10:50:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T10:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/444258\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T10:50:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T10:50:29","slug":"at-62-doug-esterman-takes-on-the-solo-trans-tasman-for-the-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/444258\/","title":{"rendered":"At 62 Doug Esterman takes on the Solo Trans-Tasman for the first time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twelve thousand offshore miles. A lifetime on the water. And not a single solo offshore passage to his name. Until now. That gap in the record says something about Doug Esterman, and it isn\u2019t what you might think. For a man with his experience, the years that might have gone into solo racing went somewhere else instead \u2014 into 24 years of Women on Water in Tauranga, into Thursday night fleets of 150 sailors finding their sea legs often aboard his boat, into watching nervous first-timers grow into helmswomen who can goosewing in a breeze. He has a photograph of his daughter, six months old in a sling, on deck at a Women on Water event. She\u2019s 23 now, and she can sail. The journey for Doug has always been about more than his own miles.<\/p>\n

\"DougDoug Esterman sitting in the cockpit of his Salthouse Cavalier 39, Fair Seasons \/\/ Photo credit: Boating New Zealand<\/p>\n

T<\/p>\n

hat contradiction sits at the heart of Doug Esterman\u2019s entry in the 2026 Solo Trans-Tasman Yacht Challenge, and he\u2019s the first to acknowledge it. At 62, the Tauranga osteopath and lifelong sailor is honest about where he sits in the fleet.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/p>\n

DOUG ESTERMAN<\/p>\n

\u201cNo solo offshore miles, so the journey begins. There are some real serious sailors here. I\u2019m the junior of the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And with it comes a sense of anticipation. It is now time to take on the challenge of his sailing life. A solo crossing of the Tasman.<\/p>\n

A boat with a history<\/p>\n

Doug\u2019s mount for the challenge is Fair Seasons, an early 1970s Cavalier 39 designed by Bob Salthouse. She is as much a family heirloom as a racing yacht. Doug\u2019s father bought her in Tauranga in April 1988, and that first delivery trip north to Auckland set the tone for everything that followed.<\/p>\n

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DOUG ESTERMAN<\/p>\n

\u201cThey got the shit kicked out of them, and basically got in and went, \u2018We\u2019ve brought a good boat.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

His father kept the boat until the end of his life, moored at the bottom of his section in Pauanui, a constant presence against the water. Doug has helmed her for fifteen years now, bought off the estate after his father passed, and the accumulated knowledge of the boat, her quirks, where things go wrong and why, is part of what makes her the right vessel for this passage.<\/p>\n

DOUG ESTERMAN<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of things that go wrong with boats. Well, I\u2019ve had 40 years of things going wrong on this one. At least I\u2019ve got an idea where most of them come from.\u201d<\/p>\n

The setup<\/p>\n

Fair Seasons is a centre-cockpit boat, three-quarter keel, with a motion that smooths out conditions lesser hulls would fight. The layout was thoughtful in ways that proved prophetic: the head is accessible without having to go deep below (important when sailing solo).<\/p>\n

\"AA drawing of the Salthouse Cavalier 39. \/\/ Supplied by Salboatdata.com<\/p>\n

Doug is under no illusions about what solo sailing demands of both skipper and vessel. The cockpit of Fair Seasons has been configured so that most sail work can be done without leaving it. He\u2019s extended the boom to allow full use of the dodger while handling sail, and the bimini and side panels close up to create what amounts to a weatherproof working station. When the Southern Ocean swell is stacking up and the spray is flying, Doug\u2019s plan is to stay inside it as much as possible.<\/p>\n

The sail plan has been simplified accordingly. He\u2019s left the furling headsail at home. \u201cIt\u2019s too hard to change by yourself,\u201d he explains. Instead, a number one takes him upwind to around 25 knots, then a number three hanked to the staysail takes over from there. The boom furler, an early Leisurefurl, handles the main, and he speaks of it with the affection of a man who\u2019s used it long enough to trust it completely. \u201cI shook a reef out in 20 seconds,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s tidy. It\u2019s easy to manage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DougDoug Esterman and Fair Seasons \/\/ Photo credit: Boating New Zealand<\/p>\n

Two autopilot systems are aboard, one on the wheel, a windpilot on the stern as a backup, after hearing what happened to fellow competitor Bob Wise during the New Plymouth to Malula Bar race, when Wise\u2019s autopilot failed 24 hours out and he hand-steered the remaining 1,100 miles. \u201cI\u2019ve been going, I don\u2019t think I could do that,\u201d Doug says. \u201cIf my autopilot blew five days into it, then maybe. But one day from the start\u2026\u201d He shakes his head. \u201cHe\u2019d built the boat himself. There was no way he wasn\u2019t going to do it. That\u2019s legendary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Honest about the gaps<\/p>\n

Ask Doug about experience and he answers honestly. He\u2019s done Tonga, New Zealand to Fiji and back, coastal miles by the hundred. His first proper solo overnighter, though, came just a couple of months ago, a 500-mile solo loop, undertaken five weeks after a hip operation. He loved it. Two weeks later he went out again overnight and was seasick for 24 hours. Admitting it\u2019s not much fun to be seasick, he does take solace in that he managed to read below in rough conditions on his last passage, which for him is something of a breakthrough.<\/p>\n

\"AA peek below. Fair Seasons, Doug Esterman\u2019s Salthouse Cavalier 39, will be home on the high seas for 12 days (give or take). \/\/ Photo credit: Boating New Zealand<\/p>\n

He calls the Solo Trans-Tasman a challenge rather than a race and means it. \u201cFair Seasons is not a racing boat, but it\u2019s comfortable. It\u2019s a bit slow.\u201d He\u2019s clear that she isn\u2019t going to be troubling the front of the fleet, and equally clear that he doesn\u2019t need her to be. \u201cYou can be canvassed up fully and you\u2019ll do seven and a half, or you can reef right down, and you\u2019ll do 7.49.\u201d<\/p>\n

What comes after<\/p>\n

Doug has no fixed plan for what happens once he reaches the Gold Coast. No deadline, no flight home booked. He\u2019s wound down his osteopathy practice for the year, and the months ahead are deliberately open. There\u2019s a possible drift north toward Vanuatu, maybe eventually Fiji, where he\u2019s previously volunteered doing osteopathy work in island communities, turning up in villages where access to manual therapy is essentially non-existent. He got so far last time that he spent his time in the customs office training officials instead of making it to the villages. He\u2019s hoping this time, if everything falls into place, that he\u2019ll go further.<\/p>\n

For now, though, the focus is the Tasman. Race Number 1, hull number 3242, 11.9 metres of Salthouse craftsmanship, and a skipper who has spent a lifetime sailing and is about to do something genuinely new.<\/p>\n

This Saturday at 12noon, that journey begins.<\/p>\n

Race Start \u2014 Saturday 30 May (12:00pm)<\/p>\n

Join the crowd and give the fleet a send-off they will never forget! The best vantage points are Opua Wharf or the Opua Cruising Club.<\/p>\n

Learn More About the Solo Trans-Tasman<\/a><\/p>\n

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