Doubts over future of expeditions

By PHILIP ENGLISH

The future of Sir Peter Blake's blakexpeditions and its flagship, the Seamaster, is in doubt because there is no clear replacement for him.

Patrick Buteaux, of Seamaster's major sponsor, Omega, told the Herald that he wanted to see blakexpeditions carry on, but it would be difficult to find a replacement for Sir Peter because he was "the leader, the locomotive" of the organisation.

"I don't know if anyone in the whole world would be able to do his job," said Mr Buteaux.

Sir Peter was in the Amazon to draw the world's attention to the wonders and needs of the environment.

He and the crew of the 36m Seamaster were on a voyage that began last summer off the Antarctic Peninsula and was to continue to the Arctic's North West Passage next year and then to the coral reefs of the South Pacific and South East Asia in 2003.

At the end of 2003, Seamaster was to complete a circumnavigation of Antarctica and visit the sub-Antarctic islands of the region.

Only days ago, Sir Peter told a yachting colleague that his racing days were over. "I don't have that fire anymore," he said. "A new fire is even stronger - to make a difference in how people perceive and understand the wonders and needs of the environment that surrounds us."

He hinted at what propelled him from racing yachts to the Seamaster in July when he was made special envoy to the United Nations Environment Programme.

At the ceremony in Auckland attended by Prime Minister Helen Clark, he spoke of his early days of ocean racing and seeing giant albatrosses and other seabirds every day.

That had changed, and now he was lucky to see one a week, he said.

In 1998 he completed his first expedition as head of the Cousteau Society after the death of Jacques Cousteau.

Last year, Sir Peter relinquished that job to go it alone with blakexpeditions, a project focusing on the world's oceans and rivers and relying on sponsorship, income from merchandising and the sale of television documentaries.

"It is vital that we continue to move through the most critical natural regions of the world ... to experience and learn first-hand what is really going on," he wrote.

"By reporting what we find we can then start to make a difference."

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