Richard Allen, 45, a maritime lawyer, former commercial fisherman and Olympic yachtsman, has been hanging around boats since he was born.

In 1996, he was a reserve for the New Zealand Tornado sailing team at the Atlanta Olympics. And in 2000, he sailed his wooden ketch, Ranui, to the Antipodes Islands south of New Zealand on a search and rescue mission for the famous New Zealand sailor Gerry Clark. Clark's yacht "Totorore" was later found, smashed up on rocks but Clark himself was never found.

Richard, who runs his own law firm in Auckland, is strongly opposed to the use of the Tasman and other seas as a nuclear transit route.

"I believe strongly, as do a lot of New Zealanders, about the nuclear issue," he says.

"There are far better renewable resources that don't have the potential lethal side effects that nuclear power and weapons do. These (plutonium) ships should not be infringing either the South Pacific or our adjacent waters with what could quite easily be a catastrophe."