How Sam Newman’s sail to the tropics took a turn for the worse

Former footy great Sam Newman’s boat trip to the tropics has been anything but plain sailing, with a wound now becoming infected and requiring hospital treatment.

Sam Newman’s high seas adventure has taken a twist with the former footy great ordered by doctors to stay out of the water after a wound became infected and his foot blew up.

Newman has sailed his boat Angst from Melbourne to Airlie Beach in Queensland, the journey being the first time he has taken the boat out of Port Phillip Bay.

Before he left Melbourne he accidentally cut his right foot. On the trip up the coast the wound went from bad to worse with the cut getting infected.

“I cut myself before I left Melbourne and did not take much notice and it steadily got worse and worse and my foot swelled up like elephant man,” Newman said.

Sam Newman aboard his boast Angst. Picture: Youtube.

Newman’s adventure has been anything but plain sailing. Picture: Youtube.

“We got to Airlie Beach and I went to the clinic and they said ‘you had better go to hospital’.

“I had to go to hospital to have my infected foot checked three times. I have some antibiotic drip, some tablets and I can’t go in the water while it is infected.

“I’m not allowed to get my foot wet because there is nothing more harmful than sticking your foot with an infected open wound into the sea.”

Newman is staying dry, sailing around the Whitsunday Islands with his friend, Sue Stanley.

He is using his boating adventure to raise awareness of prostate cancer and to support the Rule Prostate Cancer charity.

It has certainly been an adventure on the waves for Newman. He and his boat have been battered by waves, had a porthole blow out in a storm, seen part of the living quarters on on-board flooded, endured engine leaks and burst hoses, and scrapped sandbars twice on the way to Queensland.

“The weather and the tides and the ocean was far more conducive once we got past the Gold Coast,” Newman said.