Hundreds of people lost money after Ocean Sailing Expeditions was wound up and restarted under the same name.

We didn’t invest for profit. We invested for a dream — the chance to sail the world, learn ocean seamanship, and be part of a community of adventurers.

Many of us worked our entire lives to save for this opportunity. Some invested retirement savings. Others contributed more modest amounts hoping to take part in sailing expeditions and crew training.

Today, all of those investors have lost their savings and are still searching for answers.

This fundraiser is not about revenge.

It is about transparency, accountability and protecting others.

We are ordinary people who trusted a program that promised adventure, learning and community.

Instead, we are left with unanswered questions and significant financial losses.

We’re raising AUD 50,000 to fund liquidators, forensic accounting and legal action to investigate asset transfers and pursue recovery.

The personal stories of some of us are shared below at the bottom of this appeal

Between roughly 2019–2025 director David Hows raised investor capital to buy and operate multiple vessels (Silver Fern, The Dove / Te Kaihōpara, Awen, and Sea Breeze III). Investment packages were typically $5,000, $10,000 or $20,000. Investors were promised 12.5% p.a. (paid biannually) and return of capital after five years. Many investors, crew, suppliers and customers did not receive promised dividends, wages or refunds.

Key facts from the liquidator’s Statutory Report to Creditors

• The liquidators identified potentially uncommercial / unreasonable director related transactions totalling AUD 296,441.84 and are investigating. They also quantified a potential insolvent trading claim of approximately AUD 1,000,994.21

• The liquidators state further recovery actions (voidable transactions, insolvent trading) may be possible but will be expensive and require external funding from creditors or third parties; otherwise recovery is unlikely and a dividend is unlikely without successful recoveries.

We have found that there is no recourse via the government for issues such as this. Steal from the local shop and you'll end up in jail. Fleece the public for millions and there is no department that will investigate and prosecute.

ASIC is toothless, best they can do is strike people from becoming directors.

The police are not interested. Nobody got hurt and stuff like this is too hard for them.

Scamwatch justs lists this on their website, no action taken.

AFCA is only interested if its a financial firm.

The ACCC is interested if you are a consumer, but not if you are a person who has been duped by a dodgy investment.

Why we need your help

Most investors put in relatively small sums ($5k–$20k) so individual litigation is not realistic. The liquidator has identified potential recoverable matters but needs funding to pursue them. Pooled funds will allow us to:

• pay the liquidator’s additional investigative costs and forensic accounting (liquidator estimate: ~AUD 50,000)

• engage lawyers to pursue insolvent trading / director related claims and related litigation

• Help protect future investors from facing the same situation. We believe there may be many more affected people across Australia and New Zealand who are still unaware of what has happened.

How you can help

• Donate — even small amounts pooled together make these investigations possible.

• Share widely with investor, boating and community networks.

• If you were affected or have documents (contracts, transfers, receipts, marina invoices, booking confirmations), please join the Facebook group “Ocean Sailing Expeditions Investors” or contact the campaign team — evidence will strengthen recovery efforts.

Who we are:

This campaign is organised by affected investors, crew, and customers seeking to pool resources to investigate asset transfers, hold responsible parties to account, and pursue recovery for over 200 impacted people.

We are all pretty angry at being duped and will donate generously ourselves of course, but we need more help.

Collective funding is our only realistic path to properly investigate asset transfers, pursue the claims identified in the liquidator’s report, and seek recovery. Please donate and share — thank you.

Please note, if you include a tip, it goes to the platform, not to the cause. If you don't want to pay the extra tip (I didn't), then there is a slider to move to zero apparently.

Here are a few experiences:

1. I am more sad that I lost this bucket list dream trip than the money. But the money gone means I can’t book an alternate trip. I was so excited and I felt so indulgent. I had not only booked all the subsidiaries to make this trip possible I was warning people that if I disappear at sea it’s possibly because I didn’t stop talking about how happy I was.

I hope that this is just an example of the little guy not being able to stand up to the credit machine. Rather than an example of a man profiteering off our losses.

2. I have lost thousands on a trip to the Sub-Antarctic islands that didn’t go past Stewart Island. All kinds of excuses used to not make it happen…(boats were not ready for days, waiting for pest control permit (that was not booked in time, etc, etc) the most classic was that the Southern Ocean can get quite rough! Duh! Really?!

3. My story is that I invested as a shareholder in 2023 when David bought The Dove now Te Kaihapora. I’ve always loved sailing and Ocean Sailing Expeditions looked like the perfect way for me to fulfill my dream.

My first ocean passage was on TK from Opua to Fiji Vuda Marina.

However we were delayed leaving by I think 4 days. We were all fed up hanging around Opua. Then finally apparently David had us cleared to leave by registering the vessel with Britain instead of NZ. The catch was we were flying the NZ flag. Me being an artist travelling with a few art materials became responsible for colouring out the NZ flag stars leaving only the Union Jack. We were able to sail. However we had to cut the voyage short missing out on going to several destinations along the way.

Money is tight with me as I’m a pensioner artist living in a bus mainly at my daughter’s place. Therefore, there is naught to spare. At the very beginning of 2025 I signed up and paid out my savings to do another sailing adventure on TK from Broome to Exmouth. The west coast has always fascinated me. The detour out to the Rowley Shoals is what made up my mind being an avid diver and snorkeler. I am devastated about the failure of the business. Being punished for spending my hard-earned savings on following my dreams is not what I signed up for with this company.

4. I could really tell a horror story. So many breaches that Maritime NZ would be interested in particularly taking paying passengers on a ocean crossing with no ticket and he was completely out of his depth no knowledge of the boat. Honestly the 15 days with him is quite an unbelievable story that really could have and almost did result in tragedy and at one stage jokingly/seriously considered removing him as another passenger was a current tug boat captain and fully ticketed for our own safety.

5. David left me and 3 others (I’m mid 60s) stranded on the reef with an incoming tide we were washed off the reef and I were struggling to stay above water trying to support another passenger. Another boat radioed to alert David. That’s when we found out the radio was not working. Luckily the other skipper launched his kayak and got there just in time to take the lady’s weight and allow me to surface. When another passenger on Seabreeze realised something was wrong he alerted David who was more interested in playing with his drone onboard and continued with it. The engineer was alerted and came to pick us up. Because the gantry couldn’t launch the tender they used a two man inflatable with 3 hp motor. They could only take two at a time so I and another stayed perched on a rock with just heads above water until they returned 20mins later. Luckily the kayak stayed with us as reef sharks plus a tiger was circling. My leg was bleeding quite bad from a coral cut. David refused to admit any fault, apologise to me or give an explanation why he left us there and returned to the boat.

My wound had to be dressed by another passenger as David packed a sad and went off sulking. 3 weeks of antibiotics were required when I got back to NZ. It was very close to a decision to save myself or keep supporting the other passenger. Relations for the rest of the trip were very toxic.

6. He even accused me, a passenger with little boating experience, of letting the engines oil run low and leaving it up to him to stop them and add some oil and blamed my cabin mate of failing to tell him the oil needs checking daily, absolutely unbelievable.

Luckily we had some great people aboard which helped make the trip semi enjoyable.

7. I recently joined because I had a few trips planned and money paid and now not even my travel insurance will cover the loss.

8. The skipper/crew and other contractors are currently unpaid for Awen's last trip and preparations for Sydney in February.

No one has been able to reach David Hows.

9. We purchased $80k of shares in The Dove (Te Kaihopara) from our super fund when David was looking to purchase it. The wife and I also each purchased a $10k package so we could go sailing.

800 shares of $1000 each were advertised. That means we owned 1/8 of the boat (I thought – stupid me).

A dividend into our super was due two months later. It was not paid. After threatening legal action, the $2,000 dividend owing to us was paid off over 6 months. During this time, the next dividend became due. Same story – delays, excuses, business going poorly, hang in there you’ll get paid.

Then the next dividend became due. No payment, no more communication. David then held a group Zoom meeting and we were all informed that the boats were not in fact purchased by the Ocean Sailing Expeditions in Australia that we had invested our money into, but instead he had transferred our monies to his New Zealand company (of the same name), and purchased the boats with that company. He said we could sue him, but there are no assets in the company we all have our contracts with. I am now retired and missing $100k in money that I used to have before I met David.

The terrible thing is that he knew when he took our money, that he would not be paying us dividends. He hadn’t been paying other investors any dividends for years prior already. He had also already defaulted on repayment of capital to others.

10. We found out that David had started a real estate advisory style company in NZ some years ago. He had attracted investors and franchise holders. That company went belly up with investors out of pocket by hundreds of thousands of dollars.

We then found out that he moved to Australia and started up that some style company here, which had attracted investors and franchise holders. That company also went belly up with investors out of pocket by hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Then he started up Ocean Sailing Expeditions, which went belly up with investors out of pocket by millions of dollars.

If only there was some way that the public is protected from these people.