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Andrew Leachman
NZAM
Leachman in 2008
Born(1945-04-06)6 April 1945
Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, England
Died16 September 2017(2017-09-16) (aged 72)
Nelson, New Zealand
Occupation(s)Sea captain, writer
Employer(s)National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research
Royal New Zealand Navy
ChildrenSiobhan Leachman
AwardsHonorary captain of the Royal New Zealand Navy

Andrew Leachman NZAM (6 April 1945 – 16 September 2017) was a master mariner with more than 55 years of seagoing experience.[1] He captained New Zealand's research vessel Tangaroa for more than 20 years. He was posthumously awarded the New Zealand Antarctic Medal.[2] A species of marine sea cucumber was named in his honour.[3]

Early life

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Leachman was born in 1945 in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, England, and grew up in nearby Grimsby.[4]

Career

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Leachman began his maritime career as a 15-year-old galley boy on a trawler working on boats fishing off the Labrador coast.[5][6] Eventually, he became an officer cadet, working with the New Zealand Shipping Company, which was involved in transporting New Zealand's beef, mutton and lamb to the world. In 1973, he was employed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries as first mate on the research vessel, the James Cook. Ten days later the captain of the James Cook went on leave and Leachman, then aged 27, had to take over command of the ship.[7]

In 1991, there were plans for the James Cook to be replaced with a ship to be built in Bergen, Norway. Leachman flew to Norway to see the new research vessel, the RV Tangaroa, a $27 million state-of-the-art 2,282-tonne ship. This was New Zealand's only ice-strengthened deep-water research vessel. After inspecting the ship, he brought it home to New Zealand arriving in Wellington on 20 July 1991.[8][9]

RV Tangaroa in Wellington

From 1991 to 2011, Leachman captained the Tangaroa taking the ship as far north as New Caledonia and as far south as Antarctica.[7] On one voyage in 2003, scientists aboard Tangaroa discovered over 500 species of fish and 1,300 species of invertebrate,[10] and the tooth of an extinct megalodon.[11]

In 2011, the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) planned to invest in two new 85 m 1900-tonne ships to venture into the Southern Ocean to combat illegal fishing. Leachman was asked to inspect one of the vessels, HMNZS Wellington, to make sure the vessels would be suitable for handling the notorious pack ice of the Southern Ocean, and in so doing, he joined the RNZN as an ice navigation consultant.

Leachman retired in 2015 aged 70, a veteran of fourteen Antarctic voyages.[8]

Personal life

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After settling in New Zealand, Leachman became a naturalised New Zealand citizen in 1978.[12] He was married and had three daughters.[13] A keen jazz musician, he played tenor saxophone with the Woollaston Jazz & Blues Nelson Festival for many years and was a Nelson Jazz Club life member.[14] Besides jazz, his interests included olive growing, cycling and the Antarctic explorer, Sir Ernest Shackleton as well as other members of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.[4][15]

Awards and recognition

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Vivienne Leachman (left) receiving the New Zealand Antarctic Medal from the governor-general, Dame Patsy Reddy, on behalf of her late husband, at Government House, Wellington, on 30 April 2019

Leachman was made an honorary captain of the Royal New Zealand Navy in June 2017 by Navy head Rear Admiral John Martin.[13] In the 2019 New Year Honours, he was posthumously awarded the New Zealand Antarctic Medal.[2][16]

A species of Antarctic sea cucumber was named in Leachman's honour – Pentactella (formerly Laevocnus) leachmani.[3][17] On 16 July 2020, an undersea hill in the Southern Ocean, Leachman Hill, was officially named after Leachman (renamed from Leachman Ridge to Leachman Hill on 18 November 2021).[18][19][20]

Selected publications

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References

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  1. ^ "Obituary of Andrew Leachman". HeavenAddress. Retrieved 23 May 2019.
  2. ^ a b "New Year Honours 2019 – Citations for the New Zealand Antarctic Medal". New Year Honours 2019 — Citations for the New Zealand Antarctic Medal. Retrieved 18 April 2019.
  3. ^ a b O'Loughlin, P. Mark; Mackenzie, Melanie; Paulay, Gustav; VandenSpiegel, Didier (2014). "Four new species and a new genus of Antarctic sea cucumbers with taxonomic reviews of Cladodactyla, Pseudocnus, Paracucumidae and Parathyonidium (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea: Dendrochirotida)" (PDF). Memoirs of Museum Victoria. 72: 31–61. doi:10.24199/j.mmv.2014.72.04. Archived (PDF) from the original on 28 April 2019. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
  4. ^ a b Leachman, Andrew (2016). "Shackleton's Bad Lads" (PDF). Antarctic. 34 (3): 26–29.
  5. ^ "Shackleton's 'bad lads' in new light". Stuff. Retrieved 22 April 2019.
  6. ^ Noted. "Antarctic adventure – The Listener". Noted. Archived from the original on 22 April 2019. Retrieved 21 April 2019.
  7. ^ a b "Antarctic captain who played his saxophone to penguins while on daring rescues in the Southern Ocean". Stuff. Archived from the original on 2 May 2019. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
  8. ^ a b "Antarctic adventure". Otago Daily Times Online News. 23 June 2009. Archived from the original on 22 April 2019. Retrieved 21 April 2019.
  9. ^ Johnson, David; Haworth, Jenny (2004). Hooked: The story of the New Zealand Fishing Industry. Christchurch, New Zealand: Hazard Press. pp. 413–414. ISBN 1-877270-64-4.
  10. ^ "Weird ocean life surprises". BBC. 24 June 2003. Archived from the original on 24 May 2019. Retrieved 24 May 2019.
  11. ^ "Prehistoric Find On Norfanz Survey". scoop.co.nz. 20 May 2003.
  12. ^ "Andrew Leachman in the New Zealand naturalisations, 1843–1981". Ancestry.com Operations. 2010. Archived from the original on 12 January 2023. Retrieved 8 January 2023.
  13. ^ a b "Master mariner Leachman honoured by NZ Navy for Antarctic ice mentoring". Stuff. Retrieved 18 April 2019.
  14. ^ "Jazz musicians launch festival". Stuff. Retrieved 21 April 2019.
  15. ^ "Leachman's legacy remembered during fond farewell". Stuff. Retrieved 22 April 2019.
  16. ^ "Navy honours ice pilot" (PDF). Seafood Magazine. 25: 8.
  17. ^ "WoRMS – World Register of Marine Species – Pentactella leachmani (Davey & O'Loughlin in O'Loughlin et al., 2014)". www.marinespecies.org. Archived from the original on 2 November 2022. Retrieved 18 April 2019.
  18. ^ "Notice of Decisions to Adopt, Assign and Discontinue Undersea Feature Names". New Zealand Gazette. 16 July 2020. Archived from the original on 17 July 2020. Retrieved 19 July 2020.
  19. ^ Leachman Ridge coordinates: 69°40′28″S 178°46′08″E / 69.6745°S 178.7690°E / -69.6745; 178.7690 (Leachman Ridge)
  20. ^ "Notice of Decisions to Alter and Assign Undersea Feature Names - 2021-ln4946 - Te Kāhiti o Aotearoa". gazette.govt.nz. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
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  • Video clip showing Leachman describing the upcoming voyage during the departure of the research vessel Tangaroa from Wellington harbour
  • Article in The Listener, 27 June 2009, about a voyage captained by Leachman to the Ross Sea to undertake a census of marine life in the International Polar Year — Census of Marine Life
  • "Eileen's War": Leachman's mother's recollections from World War Two
  • Nelson Mail article about a talk given by Leachman on Shackleton's "bad lads"
  • Otago Daily Times article about voyaging to Antarctica under Leachman's captaincy
  • Newshub article about Leachman's role countering illegal fishing in the Southern Ocean
  • RNZ News item about Leachman's evidence at an inquest into a crew member lost from a Korean fishing boat in New Zealand waters
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