The 295-foot (90m) S/Y Athena, the world’s largest three-masted schooner, was berthed at Orams yard in Westhaven, just a stone’s throw from downtown Auckland, and I arrived at the shoes-off-at-the-gangway ready to press the bell for a crew member to take me to meet her captain, Max Cumming.

Just then, a man appeared in a grubby work outfit, carrying an electric grinder, wearing goggles and face mask, and covered in aluminum dust. Must be one of the crew, I thought, and asked where I could find the captain. 

“That’s me,” the man said. “Come on board.”

When I questioned him about his hands-on approach to what is reportedly the largest superyacht refit in New Zealand history, he said that until he’d had a good look at the job and proved to his own satisfaction that the job could be done, he was not keen on getting someone else to do it. It was my first sign that Cumming would know what he was talking about.

Taking off his protective hat, goggles and face mask revealed a rugged seafarer’s face whose clear blue eyes had seen a whole lot of sea miles, and a smile that was never far away. Being responsible for such a large refit didn’t seem to faze him, as was evident in the way he spoke to crew members and their friendly, but respectful, responses to his orders. 

“I like career-orientated people who come to sea not just for the money, but for travel, adventure and the thrill of sailing large yachts,” Capt. Cumming said of his crew. “I prefer a multi-national crew as that keeps life onboard interesting, not only for other crew members, but also for the owners and their guests.

“When the owners and guests come aboard, it’s like showtime and it’s when I need crew who not only have good maritime skills, but who can also entertain when needed, and keep a respectful distance at other times,” he said. “Our job is to run a safe and efficient operation, but at the same time ensure that the owners and guests have an enjoyable time while they are with us.”

Born in Sydney of an Aussie father and a Kiwi mum, Cumming is the 6th generation of his family who have followed a career at sea. His great-grandfather was the well-known Capt. William Farquhar, the longest serving captain on the New Zealand coastal Northern Steamship Company’s steamer Clansman.

Like many of today’s practical seafarers, Cumming started his career by messing around in dinghies and receiving good instruction while a Sea Scout in Melbourne where the instructors were ex-Navy. His father was a lieutenant commander in the Australian Navy, and so there was no shortage of nautical influence at home.

The family were true ANZACS, often spending time in New Zealand, making Russell in the Bay of Islands their base. He was 12 years old when his family moved to the remote island of Manihiki in the Cook Islands, where his mother and father started the world’s first black pearl farm. 

It was 1974 with no airport, electricity or radio on the island, and the Cummings were the only white people (papaa) on the island with 300 locals. Schooling was by correspondence, with a lot of time being spent either in or on the water.

By the time he was 16, Cumming and his older brother worked the family farm, diving to between 10m and 30m each day, harvesting wild shells to put into the black pearl farm.

His first sea-going job was on the old island trader Manuvai, owned by Don Silk of the Silk and Boyd Shipping Company of Rarotonga. Island hopping gave Cumming a thirst for the wider world.

When he was 20, he returned to Russell and bought the 24-foot (7.8m) launch Polaris, did her up and became a commercial fisherman in 1981. Fishing forays with the Polaris took him some 300 miles out into the Tasman Ocean, to the Wanganella Bank south of Norfolk Island, to “borrow” some fish off the Aussies, he said.

After earning his inshore fisherman’s ticket, he started crewing on the New Zealand tallship R.Tucker Thompson in the Bay of Islands, gaining experience in the art of sailing vessels with both fore and aft sails and a square-sail.

The traditional sailing vessels of the UK beckoned, and Cumming spent time as a volunteer crew on old sailing vessels there. His first real square-sail delivery trip was on the Norwegian fully rigged ship The Sorlandet, which at the time was the oldest operative vessel of its type. 

While delivering the old Belgian fishing ketch Goedewill, the English Channel provided Cumming with his first real storm at sea. While it frightened the life out of him, he said it gave him a new respect for the sea, and for the rules and regulations that are necessary to keep vessels in a seaworthy condition.

His own first sailing yacht was an original 1936 Virtue (V6), the same as renowned world cruisers, the Hiscocks, used on their circumnavigations back in the 60s and 70s. By then, Cumming was based in Devonshire, and being short of money to make a voyage in her, he unbolted his new VHF that he had just mounted and sold it at the Pandora Pub in Helford, only to spend it on beer, he said. 

Not a great start to the voyage, he admitted, but he did make it to Lands End before sensibly turning around.

Money was tight when he heard that there were paying jobs for crew on superyachts in the Caribbean. He got a deckhand’s job on the 240-foot (79m) M/Y Katalina purely because he knew how to attach a fishing line to a fishing hook, he said.

Cumming said his motivation for staying on superyacht has been the beautiful boats he gets to sail on, and travelling the world. His desire for knowledge has not decreased over the years, and he has paralleled his advancement through his tickets by obtaining both N.Z. and U.K. certifications, now holding a N.Z. offshore master’s certificate and a UK/MCA yachtmaster 3,000 tons.

In working his way up, Cumming has crewed on some of the world’s better known superyachts, including M/Y Boadicea and M/Y Itasca when Capt. Alan Jouning (of 37 South Ltd.) was skipper for the voyage through the North West Passage and down to Antarctica. 

Cumming’s first command came in 2000 on the 44.7m performance ketch S/Y Mari Cha III, with a combination of cruising and racing. Some great years were then spent aboard the 190-foot (59m) expedition yacht Senses when it was owned by New Zealanders Sir Douglas and Lady Barbara Myers, who were good bosses, he said.

Cummings took a heap of photographs along the way and the Myers commissioned him to write a coffee-table book of the adventure: “Senses – a Circumnavigation with Style”.

His time on superyachts has been half motor, half sail, but it would be hard to beat the beauty of the Athena when under sail. 

Now, more than a year into his command, it is clear that Cumming is a man who is happy in his job, and one who has the depth of knowledge that must give great confidence to both his owner and crew.