Warana The Voyage of the Australian Nuclear Protest Yacht

In 1973, Brian Crawford was a 25-year-old hippie out to see the world and have adventures. After nearly two years on a schooner in North Atlantic gales, he was looking for warmer water. He went to the Kingdom of Tonga, where his brother was training Peace Corps volunteers. Although he loved the people and country of Tonga, his tourist visa expired and he had to leave. With no money, his options were few. Then he found a yacht that would take him on as navigator – Warana, the Australian nuclear protest vessel, bound for Mururoa atoll in French Polynesia, to try to prevent the French from testing more nuclear weapons there. He joined a disillusioned and discontented crew of misfits, all of whom soon gave up and returned home. With the skipper Peter Sturgess and a crew of American hippies rounded up from waterfront bars, they began the voyage back to Australia. Visiting Fiji, New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), New Caledonia, Brisbane, Sydney, they eventually returned home to Melbourne, only to set out on the grueling 650-mile Sydney-Hobart open ocean race.