Families pay tribute to Sydney to Hobart Champion Peter Warner

He famously rescued a group of Tongan castaways and won the Sydney to Hobart race three times. When it comes to seafarers, Peter Warner was one of the greats.

One of Australia’s best known sailors who won the Sydney to Hobart race three times and famously rescued a group of Tongan castaways has been praised as a “great seafarer”.

Peter Warner, 90, lost his life after falling overboard on the NSW North Coast on Tuesday morning after his yacht rolled on the incoming tide on the Ballina bar, throwing him and a teenager overboard.

The 17-year-old family friend managed to drag Mr Warner to shore where a member of the public commenced CPR until paramedics arrived. He later died at the scene.

“He was a great seafarer and passed away (Tuesday) morning after a night-time sail up from Yamba on his new boat,” Mr Warner’s daughter Janet said.

“The conditions were favourable otherwise he would not have attempted the voyage.”

Peter Warner during his book launch at Feros Care Wommin Bay.

Ms Warner also praised the 17-year-old who was on board with her father at the time.

“The lad with my father is amazing in what he did to bring him ashore. We are so grateful to his sailing companion,” she said.

The Cruising Yacht Club of Australia said the veteran sailor died “doing what he loved best”.

“It is with great sadness that we mourn the passing … of an internationally celebrated Australian sailor and a close friend of the club,” it posted on Facebook.

“Peter Warner was an exceptional blue water yachtsman and won the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race three times aboard his yacht ‘Astor’ during the 1960s.”

A report will be prepared for the coroner.

Peter Warner's two autobiographies, Adventures Ashore and Afloat plus Oceans of Light.

DROPOUT WHO WENT TO SEA

At age 17, Mr Warner refused to join the family business, instead running away to go to sea for a year.

His father was Sir Arthur Warner, one of Australia's richest men at the time and the boss of Astor Radio Corporation, one of the country’s largest electronic manufacturing companies.

Mr Warner returned home as a teenager, but fled again for another three years when he was just six weeks into a law degree. He served in both the Swedish and Norwegian navies and learned Swedish to obtain a Swedish master’s ticket.

Eventually, he came home and worked for his father for a few years, but the ocean was always calling.

He spent 30 years living in Tonga and moving around the South Pacific.

His Majesty Topou IV of Tonga (left) and Peter Warner (far right) after he rescued the six castaways. Picture: John Gass

‘LORD OF THE FLIES’ RESCUER

In 1966, Mr Warner was captaining a fishing boat near Tonga when he discovered six shipwrecked Tongan teenagers on the deserted remote island of ʻAta.

The boys had been stranded for more than a year and were presumed dead.

They had run away from Catholic school and stolen a boat to sail for Fiji, only to be put off course by a storm and stranded on the island.

Peter Warner and Mano Totau, one of the boys he rescued from the remote island of ’Ata Picture: Jamie Brown

“The boys had set up a small commune with food garden, hollowed-out tree trunks to store rainwater, a gymnasium with curious weights, a badminton court, chicken pens and a permanent fire, all from handiwork, an old knife blade and much determination,” he wrote in his memoir.

When the boys were arrested for stealing the boat on arrival in Nuku‘alofa, Mr Warner paid off the boat’s owner to make the charges go away.

He then transported the boys back to their home island to be reunited with their families.

An Australian film crew chronicled the reunion in a movie about the saga called ‘The Castaways’, which saw the boys return to ’Ata to re-enact their time there.

SYDNEY TO HOBART WINS

At the helm of his yacht Aston, Warner won line honours in three Sydney to Hobart races – in 1961, 1963, and 1964. In 1962 he came second by just one minute.