Peter Warner

Peter Warner (born 1931[1]) is an Australian former ship's captain who discovered six Tongan youths marooned on a Pacific island in 1966, more than a year after they had been presumed dead.

Early life

Peter Warner is the youngest son of Sir Arthur Warner, who was head of Electronic Industries and one of Australia's richest men of his day.[2]

Sailing career

Warner ran away from home at the age of 17, wanting to sail boats, and not wanting to be a part of his wealthy father's large business.[3] Upon his return a year later, his father made him finish school, and enrol in Law at the University of Melbourne.[3] However after six weeks of studying Law, he ran away to sea again and didn't return for three years.[3] During that time, he served in both the Swedish and Norwegian navies.[3] After learning Swedish, he sat for the exams to obtain a Swedish master's ticket.[3]

Upon returning to Australia, he finally joined his father's business, staying for five years and studying accountancy.[3] While working for his father, as a side business, Warner acquired a small fleet of fishing boats based in Tasmania.[3] From time to time, he would take a break from business and work aboard boats in the fleet.[3]

Skippering his yacht, Astor, Peter Warner won line honours in 1961, 1963, and 1964 in the annual Sydney to Hobart yacht race,[4] and came second in 1962 by 1 minute [5]. The boat was named after the Warner family's household appliance company, Astor Radio Corporation.[4]

Boys marooned on the island of 'Ata

On 11 September 1966, Captain Warner was sailing his Australian fishing boat Just David past the Tongan island of ʻAta. He noticed patches of burned grass on the island's cliff sides, which he thought unusual, and approached to investigate. Warner was greeted by the six boys, who had been keeping a lookout for more than a year.[2] Although they had lit signal fires each time a ship passed, four had failed to sight the boys. Once aboard Warner's boat, they told him that they were students at a boarding school in Nukuʻalofa, the Tongan capital. They had decided to steal a fishing boat one day, only to get caught in a storm.[2]

The boys had fallen asleep after dropping anchor north of the island of Tongatapu, when a squall broke their anchor rope and they drifted out into wild seas and gale force winds.[6] Their trip to the island lasted eight days, and they needed to constantly bail water from the 24 ft boat.[6] Fortunately, when at anchor they had caught some fish, and by eating it raw were kept sustained during the journey.[6] The boat was beginning to break up when they sighted ʻAta, the southernmost island in the Tongan group.[6]

One of the boys, Sione Filipe Totau, went ashore first to scout the island. The others joined him, but it was nighttime and they were weak from hunger and thirst. That night the boys went hunting, drinking the blood of sea birds and draining their eggs.[7] Once established on the island, they climbed to the top of a volcanic crater where they found wild taro, bananas and chickens descended from those cultivated when the island had been inhabited a century earlier.[2]

By the time Captain Warner arrived, the boys had set up a commune with a food garden, hollowed-out trees to store rainwater, a gymnasium, badminton court, chicken enclosures and a permanent fire.[8]

Upon their return, the boys were greeted by their friends and relatives, who had presumed them dead and held their funerals.[7] However, they were arrested for stealing the boat, as its owner, Mr Taniela Uhila, wanted to press charges.[9] Warner helped the boys get out of jail by paying Mr Uhila for the boat. He also secured the documentary rights to the story, with the boys acting as themselves in the film.[10] He later had a new ship built, and hired the boys as crew.[9]

Author Rutger Bregman has compared the incident to Lord of the Flies, the 1954 novel by William Golding.[2]

Another Saved Crew

In 1974 Captain Warner was undertaking sea trials of his refurbished fishing boat 'Ata'. On reaching Middleton Reef in the Tasman Sea he discovered four Welsh sailors from the sailing boat 'Sospan Fach' who had been shipwrecked on the lonely reef. The crew man who sighted the distress flashes from a mirror was none other than Sione Filipe Totau, the lead boy from Ata Island - now a deckhand on Warner's ship.[3]


Later years

In 1968, Warner moved with his family to Tonga and lived there for the next three decades. In 1990, he became a member of the Baháʼí Faith and, in 1996, he helped found the Ocean of Light International School in Tonga, a Baháʼí school.[1]

In the 1990s, Warner’s career turned from fishing and shipping to horticulture, tree management, and the farming of nuts. Several years after returning to Australia in 1998,[1] Warner founded Tree Carers Pty Ltd, a business dedicated to nut farming.[11]

In 2019, Peter Warner published a book about his life as a fishing boat captain and ocean racing sailor.[12]


He has published three volumes of his auto-biography-

Astor: Adventures Ashore & Afloat Connor Court Publishing 2020 - on his upbringing and taking to sea and his yachting successes up to 1965.

Ocean of Light: 30 years in Tonga and the Pacific Connor Court Publishing 2020 - his time from finding the Tongan boys in 1966, establishing a fishing fleet and then a small shipping line based in Tonga, until his intended retirement to Australia in the mid-1990s.

Twilight of the Dawn Connor Court Publishing 2020- on his attempts to retire - always frustrated by his entrepreneurial spirit and a wish to solve problems - with his search for meaning in an age of excess information and poor wisdom.


References
  1. Warner, Peter (2016). Ocean of Light. ISBN 978-0-646-95694-7.
  2. Bregman, Rutger (2020-05-09). "The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-05-13.
  3. "THE DROPOUT WHO WENT TO SEA". Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982). 1974-06-19. p. 7. Retrieved 2020-05-13.
  4. "Astor". Australian National Maritime Museum. Retrieved 2020-05-13.
  5. "Sydney Hobart result 1962". Rolex Sydney Hobart. Cruising Yacht Club of Australia. Retrieved 10 September 2020.
  6. Lavin, Dorothy (October 1966). "Tongan Robinson Crusoes Gaoled After 15 Months On Lonely Isle". Pacific Islands Monthly. Vol. 37 no. 10. pp. 101–103. Retrieved 2020-05-14.
  7. Lyons, Kate (2020-05-13). "The 'real Lord of the Flies': a survivor's story of shipwreck and salvation". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-05-16.
  8. Bregman, Rutger (2020-05-09). "The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-05-16.
  9. "Six Boys Survived Being Shipwrecked For 15 Months After 'Borrowing' Boat". www.unilad.co.uk. Retrieved 2020-05-13.
  10. "Real 'Lord of the Flies' story had a happier ending for castaway boys". Global News. Retrieved 2020-05-14.
  11. "Peter Warner". Tree Carers Pty Ltd.
  12. Bibby, Paul (8 May 2019). "Peter Warner to launch book of sailing tales in Ballina". Echo Net Daily.
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