Nicholas Grainger, author of The Voyage of The Aegre, was born in Ireland but grew up near Cambridge, England. Since 1975 he has lived in Australia and New Zealand.
According to Nicholas, his mother entreated him to ‘Wear out, don’t rust out’ , and he’s been trying ever since.
In 1971-2, Nicholas worked at the John Ridgway Adventure School in NW Scotland.
In 1973-4, he sailed across the Atlantic and much of the Pacific in a small Shetland boat, The Aegre.
Nicholas subsequently worked in the NZ Outward Bound School and the National YMCA of New Zealand. He then moved into management roles in ICI and later PPG Industries.
Despite an inauspicious academic record at school, as a mature student, Nick completed an MBA (Massey University, NZ, 1993), and an MA in Virtual Communication (RMIT University, Australia, 2002),
In 2003-4, he sailed around the world from Scotland, via the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Leeuwen and Cape Horn with adventurers John and Marie Christine Ridgway aboard their 57ft ketch, English Rose VI, as part of a campaign to raise awareness of the danger of the albatross becoming extinct due to their loss as a bycatch of unregulated longline fishing in the Southern Ocean.
Communicating their progress and the issue from their yacht (in the early days of deep-sea communication via the internet), more than 100,000 people signed their petition for action. They presented this to the UN Food and Agriculture Committee in Rome, which helped establish requirements that vessels from many countries take measures to minimise the bycatch and carry observers on board. The albatross may survive.
Drawing on this experience, Nick completed a PhD at RMIT University, Australia, researching the Effect of the Internet on Expedition Communication, and subsequently took up an academic teaching and research role at Swinburne University, Australia.
Nick lives in Melbourne with his wife Tomoko. They have two daughters and two granddaughters.
Nick can be contacted at nick@nicholasgrainger.com.au
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