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WELLINGTON: New Zealand adventurer Shaun Quincey became the first person to conquer the Tasman Sea rowing from west to east when he came ashore on Sunday to complete an epic 2,200-kilometre journey.
The 53-day solo voyage was also 10 days quicker than the only other person to have achieved the feat, his father Colin, who completed the journey in 1977 rowing from east to west in 63 days.
A crowd of 500 well-wishers gathered at 90 Mile Beach in the far north of New Zealand to greet Shaun Quincey as he swam the last few hundred metres to shore after abandoning his craft to avoid being swamped in the heavy surf.
"I lost 17 kilograms on the journey but I'm feeling good with some beer and chips in me," he later told the New Zealand Press Association.
"I'm finding it quite hard to walk at the moment after that much time sitting in a confined space, and I'm a bit sunburnt and trying to get used to open spaces again, but generally it's pretty good."
He estimated that winds and currents added 1,700 kilometres to his journey.
"I went around 3,900 kilometres in the end," he said.
Quincey, 25, left New South Wales in his 7.3-metre boat, Tasman Trespasser, on January 20 and survived treacherous conditions during the crossing.
He snapped two oars, was capsized twice in fierce storms and nearly ran out of water.
But he said on his Internet blog that the most memorable event was on day 24, when he rowed into a whale.
When the vessel came to a sudden halt he first through he had hit a container but "all of a sudden a huge whale head breaches the surface next to the boat," the blog said.
All previous solo west-east attempts to cross the Tasman have failed, with the most recent being Australian kayaker Andrew McAuley, who is presumed to have drowned when he was tipped into the sea 30 kilometres from the southern coast of New Zealand. His body was never recovered. - AFP/de
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