Andrew Leachman (6 April 1945 – 16 September 2017) was a

master mariner A master mariner is a licensed mariner who holds the highest grade of seafarer qualification; namely, an unlimited master's license. Such a license is labelled ''unlimited'' because it has no limits on the tonnage, power, or geographic location of ...

with more than 55 years of seagoing experience. He captained New Zealand's research vessel ''Tangaroa'' for more than 20 years. He was posthumously awarded the

New Zealand Antarctic Medal The New Zealand Antarctic Medal was created 1 September 2006, as a New Zealand royal honour to replace the British Polar Medal. History The Polar Medal was instituted in 1904 and awarded to those who had made notable contributions to the explor ...

. A species of marine sea cucumber was named in his honour.

Early life

Leachman was born in 1945 in

Cleethorpes Cleethorpes () is a seaside town on the estuary of the Humber in North East Lincolnshire, England with a population of 38,372 in 2020. It has been permanently occupied since the 6th century, with fishing as its original industry, then develo ...

, Lincolnshire, England, and grew up in nearby

Grimsby Grimsby or Great Grimsby is a port town and the administrative centre of North East Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire, England. Grimsby adjoins the town of Cleethorpes directly to the south-east forming a conurbation. Grimsby is north-east of Linco ...

Career

Leachman began his maritime career as a 15-year-old galley boy on a trawler working on boats fishing off the

Labrador , nickname = "The Big Land" , etymology = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Canada , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 ...

coast. Eventually, he became an officer cadet, working with the

New Zealand Shipping Company The New Zealand Shipping Company (NZSC) was a shipping company whose ships ran passenger and cargo services between Great Britain and New Zealand between 1873 and 1973. A group of Christchurch businessmen founded the company in 1873, similar ...

, 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. In 1991, there were plans for the ''James Cook'' to be replaced with a ship to be built in

Bergen Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers and is on the peninsula of ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. 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. RV_Tangaroa_in_Wellington

From 1991 to 2011, Leachman captained the ''Tangaroa'' taking the ship as far north as

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and as far south as

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

. On one voyage in 2003, scientists aboard ''Tangaroa'' discovered over 500 species of fish and 1,300 species of invertebrate, and the tooth of an extinct

megalodon Megalodon (''Otodus megalodon''), meaning "big tooth", is an extinct species of mackerel shark that lived approximately 23 to 3.6 million years ago (Mya), from the Early Miocene to the Pliocene epochs. It was formerly thought to be a member ...

. In 2011, the

Royal New Zealand Navy The Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN; mi, Te Taua Moana o Aotearoa, , Sea Warriors of New Zealand) is the maritime arm of the New Zealand Defence Force. The fleet currently consists of nine ships. The Navy had its origins in the Naval Defence Act ...

(RNZN) planned to invest in two new 85 m 1900-tonne ships to venture into the

Southern Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is regarded as the second-small ...

to combat

illegal fishing Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) is an issue around the world. Fishing industry observers believe IUU occurs in most fisheries, and accounts for up to 30% of total catches in some important fisheries. Illegal fishing takes pl ...

. Leachman was asked to inspect one of the vessels, , to make sure the vessels would be suitable for handling the notorious

pack ice Drift ice, also called brash ice, is sea ice that is not attached to the shoreline or any other fixed object (shoals, grounded icebergs, etc.).Leppäranta, M. 2011. The Drift of Sea Ice. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Unlike fast ice, which is "fasten ...

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.

Personal life

After settling in New Zealand, Leachman became a naturalised New Zealand citizen in 1978. He was married and had three daughters. 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. Besides jazz, his interests included olive growing, cycling and the Antarctic explorer,

Sir Ernest Shackleton Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of An ...

as well as other members of the

Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917 is considered to be the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Conceived by Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition was an attempt to make the first land crossing ...

Awards and recognition

Leachman was made an honorary captain of the Royal New Zealand Navy in June 2017 by Navy head Rear Admiral John Martin. In the

2019 New Year Honours The 2019 New Year Honours are appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebratio ...

, he was posthumously awarded the

. A species of Antarctic

sea cucumber Sea cucumbers are echinoderms from the class Holothuroidea (). They are marine animals with a leathery skin and an elongated body containing a single, branched gonad. Sea cucumbers are found on the sea floor worldwide. The number of holothuria ...

was named in Leachman's honour – '' Pentactella'' (formerly ''Laevocnus'') '' leachmani''. 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).

Selected publications

* Leachman, Andrew, (2016) "Harry McNish – An insight into Shackleton's Carpenter",
Antarctic
'' 34(3):26–29 * Leachman, Andrew, (2015) Letter,
Antarctic
33'' (1):6 * McKoy, J. L., and A. Leachman.
Aggregations of ovigerous female rock lobsters, Jasus edwardsii (Decapoda: Palinuridae).
New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research 16.2 (1982): 141–146.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leachman, Andrew 1945 births 2017 deaths Recipients of the New Zealand Antarctic Medal New Zealand and the Antarctic Sea captains People from Nelson, New Zealand People from Cleethorpes British emigrants to New Zealand Naturalised citizens of New Zealand