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Rob and Rosemary Peterswald

The Full Story

Rob and Rosemary Peterswald have been sailing together for many years, both in Australian waters, in the Mediterranean and on the Dutch and French canals. They have produced six coffee table books encompassing their sailing experiences, the seafood they have tasted along the way and the many varieties of wine of each region they have sailed through.

Their first boat was a small wooden motor launch, which they acquired in Port Moresby shortly after their marriage in 1966 when Rob was posted as an officer with the Pacific Islands Regiment at Taurama Barracks. In 1975, with Rob now posted to Canberra, they acquired a Boomeroo 22, based on the design of the Catalina 22, an American yacht, which they sailed on Lake Burley Griffin and along the coast of NSW.

In 1980 they moved to Tasmania where they bought an apple orchard on the Tasman Peninsula and continued their love of sailing by purchasing a Huon pine sloop, The Charlotte Rose, which they sailed extensively in Tasmanian waters. When they wished to go further afield, across Bass Strait and up the east coast of Australia they purchased a Roberts Mauritius, named Reveille. Their next yacht was a Tasmanian 1950’s Huon and Celery Top pine ketch, Tasman Isle. In the year 2000, when they retired from their successful real estate business, Peterswalds, in Hobart, they purchased Oceania 11, a fifty-foot ketch, which was such a pretty yacht that Claudia Shiffer, the famous supermodel, demanded to be taken sailing on her.

On Sea Dreams in Crete

It was when sailing on Oceania from her home in Queensland back to Tasmania that Rob and Rosemary came up with the idea of producing coffee table books on their experiences. Firstly, came From the Sea, showcasing Tasmania’s beautiful sailing waters, seafood and wine, followed by Beyond the Shore featuring the east coast of Australia from Port Davey in the Southern Ocean to the tip of far north Queensland.

Having yearned to sail the Mediterranean in 2008 they bought a new Benneteau Oceanis 50 in Gruissan in the south of France. And so began their adventures in the Mediterranean on Sea Dreams, which has resulted in Sea Dreams in the Western Mediterranean, Sea Dreams in the Adriatic and 50 Romantic Havens in the Mediterranean. In 2017 they decided to sail the Dutch and French canals. In the town of Sneek in Holland they found Linna, a Dutch steel boat and sailed her throughout Holland and France until they arrived in Strasbourg in October 2019, where they left her for the European winter to return to Australia. In 2020 COVID hit and sadly Linna had to be sold, putting on hold the Peterswalds’ planned book on European Waterways.

They now have Water Music a Catalina Morgan 44 (built by the same Californian firm as their original Boomeroo). They keep her at their berth in Bayview Harbour below their apartment at Runnaway Bay in Queensland and continue to sail extensively. They have now produced a new edition of Beyond the Shore, this time called Coasting, a Sailing and Dining Odyssey Along Australian Shores.

Rosemary, who was born in Tipperary in Ireland, has published a novel, The Homestead on the River with Harper Collins, (Mira) under the name Rosie Mackenzie. She has also published a memoir, Can My Pony Come Too? under the name, Rosemary Esmonde Peterswald, the name she also uses for her novel, Bird of Paradise. Rob has published a novel, The Castle at Peters Forrest and Volumes 1 and 2 of the History of the World from the Back of a Boat. They are delighted that their new book, Coasting, a Sailing and Dining Odyssey Along Australian Shores has been taken on for distribution by Booktopia Book Publishers and will be available in most bookshops, libraries, gift shops and many other outlets, as well as online.