A YouTube interview (James Laughlin with Shaun Quincey) discussing Shaun Quincey’s solo ocean rowing voyage from Coffs Harbour (Australia) toward New Zealand at age 23, including the physical and psychological hardships he endured, and its connection to his father’s 1977 Tasman crossing. The excerpt emphasizes moments of extreme difficulty: capsizing, injury, and acute fear/isolation.
And I was crying and sobbing, this is terrible. And he goes. And I was like, oh. And he goes, just. And I was like, oh, okay.
So 1977, your dad becomes the first person in the world to row from New Zealand to Australia across the crazy Tasman. Then you, his son, decide, I'm going to do the opposite. I'm going to start in Coffs Harbour and I'm going to come across. And you landed a 90 mile beach.
For me, it was so obvious. I had to try. I had to do it.
When did you actually do it?
I did at 23. Yeah. This is shit. This is really hard. My hands are bleeding, my backside's bleeding. The boat got pushed and then what looked like a combi van sized gray head pushed the boat to the left and popped out of the water. So I was trapped upside down where the boat got flipped and I couldn't get the boat back up again. There was some hard days where I couldn't sit up. I was lying in my cabin and I was like, I can't sit up.
What were some of those fears that came up when you're out there by yourself?
Well, it got so bad that I was gonna sit in the boat, on the boat. It sounds like bullshit, so I hate telling the story because it is so biz.
