Boating New Zealand — January 2018

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ong-time readers may

recall my story on

Kerstin Novero (now

Mueller) and her

yacht Tara some 11

years ago. Back then,

it was Kerstin’s indomitable will, along

with the boat’s name, that prompted the

title of my story – Going With the Wind

• a play on Margaret Mitchell’s novel
  Gone With The Wind.
  And it’s uncanny how the last 11 years
  of Kerstin’s life has mirrored that of the
  book’s fictional heroine, Scarlett O’Hara.
  Both have three children, both suffer
  hard times, both separate from husbands
  and both own something dear to their
  heart named Tara. Kerstin’s Tara is a
  7.92m gaff-rigged cutter, and Scarlett’s is a
  640-acre cotton plantation. For both Tara
  represents a refuge, a place to call home.
  We left Kerstin in 2006, married to
  Crispin Novero, finishing off their newly-
  launched Tara and teaching two-year-
  old Leo to walk. Then, their goal was a
  circumnavigation. While this goal hasn’t
  yet been achieved, Kerstin’s still afloat and
  far from swallowing the anchor.*

LET’S RETRACE HER JOURNEY

The Noveros left Auckland in mid-2006

and, after a two-year break in Napier to

have their second child Maea, arrived in

the Marlborough Sounds. The plan was to

live aboard Tara while earning the funds

for the circumnavigation. But the GFC

had hit Picton and jobs were hard to get.

With the birth of their third child, the

family relocated to the West Coast where

Crispin took a farming job. Tara went too.

“Rather than spend money on keeping

the boat up here [Marlborough Sounds]

we thought it would be cheaper to truck

her to the farm and finish off the interior

there,” says Kerstin.

But when Crispin lost his job Tara

had to be moved to Greymouth while the

family stayed with Kerstin’s parents in

Reefton. The couple separated in 2011,

but with three children to support,

Kerstin had no resources to make Tara

seaworthy and the yacht remained in the

Greymouth fishing boat harbour.

“I’d pop down to see the boat regularly,

but it was heartbreaking. It was basically

as low as you can get in boating terms –

watching your beautiful yacht going up

L

WORDS BY JOHN MACFARLANE

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN MACFARLANE,

KERSTIN MUELLER & SAM BROWN

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