Whether at the helm during wild moments at sea, or fixing something down in the engine room, Liz was an indispensible part of whatever yacht she crewed on. These photos were taken in 2017 while crewing for Turn the Tide on Plastic in the Volvo Ocean Race
Tribal Plumbing owner Mark Laruffa, with whom she competed at international regattas and championships, before swapping Hobies for big yachts and ocean racing. Clocking in over one million nautical miles sailing across various oceans, Liz has represented both
PNG and Australia in the biggest sailing events in the world, including three times in the world’s toughest and longest yacht race, The Ocean Race (formerly Volvo Ocean Race), two of these as part of an all-female crew, then joining the Turn the Tide on Plastic crew in 2017-
2018, which involved raising awareness on the United Nation’s Clean Seas campaign in 12 host cities on six continents. Last year she returned to the Ocean Race to crew with WindWhisper Racing Team, which won the event’s inshore race series. But the first time Liz
really made history was after she left PNG at just 16. Based at the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron, she started off scrubbing hulls and doing all the dirty work for the wealthy yachties before her big break came in 1998 when she was sponsored
by Phillip’s Foote, an historic pub in
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