Her Father Took Her to Sea at 6, and She Says She Was Trapped on That Boat Until She Was 17

Suzanne Cook was six when her father announced a sailing trip to retrace Captain Cook’s third voyage. A year later, she had to say goodbye to her best friend Sarah, her dog Rusty, and her dollhouse, but he promised they’d all be waiting when the family came home, before she turned 10. She wouldn’t see any of them again for a decade. She’d imagined an extended summer holiday. What followed was nothing like it, she later wrote.

The Boat Was Called Wavewalker, and It Was Bought Because Its Builder Ran Out of Money

The family found Wavewalker at a boatyard on the Isle of Wight: an unfinished hull with a long, curved bow, two masts, and a raised deck. Gordon Cook bought her at a price he could afford after a builder ran out of funds. That summer, the family sailed from England with three crew members, planning a route through South America, South Africa, Australia, and Hawaii, as she later recounted in a HuffPost essay and a Guardian memoir extract.

A Storm in the Indian Ocean Nearly Sank the Boat and Her With It

On New Year’s Day, Wavewalker was struck by a massive wave in the southern Indian Ocean. Suzanne had been clutching her teddy bear, Teddy, moments before it broke a hole in the deck and flooded the cabin, leaving her with a fractured skull and broken nose. As water poured in, her brother asked if they were going to die; she answered that they probably were. She underwent multiple head operations alone, without anesthesia, at Île Amsterdam. Her father sailed the damaged boat to Fremantle; she, her mother, and brother left by container ship.

The Three-Year Trip Was Supposed to End in Hawaii. Her Father Had Other Plans

After repairs in Fremantle, the family sailed together to Sydney, then across to New Zealand before turning northeast toward Hawaii. By the time Wavewalker reached Honolulu, 200 years after the explorer Captain Cook had died, Suzanne Cook was nine, and the family had spent two years and 223 days at sea. Their voyage was meant to end. Instead, her father called a vote on sailing home or continuing through the Pacific, with ballots drawn from his captain’s hat. The vote tied, and Gordon Cook used the captain’s “casting vote” to keep going. Wavewalker sailed on.

For Years, the Family Circled the Pacific While She Cooked, Cleaned, and Waited

The Pacific years brought new dangers and few comforts. The boat weathered another cyclone and stopped at remote islands such as Tanna in Vanuatu and Tikopia in the Solomons. Gordon Cook began taking on paying guests, turning Wavewalker into what his daughter called a “floating hotel,” where she cooked and cleaned for hours each day. She later wrote that she felt “trapped on Wavewalker against my will.”

She Hid Inside a Sail Just to Find Quiet Space to Study

At 13, Cook finally won permission to enroll in an Australian correspondence school, but lessons were hard to protect on a working boat. She had no desk beyond a small table in the main cabin, so she sometimes studied tucked inside a folded sail at the bow. Paper was scarce and expensive in the South Pacific, and lessons mailed to one port often went missing if her father changed course.

At 16, She Was Left to Run a Household and a Family Business Alone

When Cook was 16, her father took a marketing job near Rotorua, New Zealand, and the siblings were sent to live alone in a lakeside hut while her mother sailed on with a hired skipper. Her father later reversed course and chose to skipper Wavewalker himself instead. He left for nine months, leaving Cook to manage his charter business and a bank account she could only access by forging his signature.

Alone and Worried About Money, She Called a Children’s Helpline for Support

With her parents away and a brother to look after, Cook once dialed Childline from the Yellow Pages, telling a counselor she did not know when her parents would call again. The counselor told her, “none of this is your fault,” and warned that she could not manage everything alone. Around the same time, immigration officials in Tauranga questioned her repeatedly about her parents’ whereabouts as her visa neared expiration.

Most Universities Rejected Her. Then Oxford Asked for Two Essays

To leave New Zealand, immigration required proof of a flight home, so Cook used money she earned picking kiwis, plus a small contribution from her father, to buy a one-way ticket to England. She had already written to universities asking to apply. Local schools turned her down over her citizenship; English ones said her unconventional qualifications were too hard to assess. Oxford eventually agreed to interview her after two essays, and she enrolled the following year.

She Returned to Build a Family Life Defined by What She Was Denied

Cook went on to earn a Ph.D. at Cambridge and later worked in the UK Treasury, where she met her husband, Jeremy Heywood, and raised three children. When she wrote her memoir, she noted her parents had always described their voyage as an adventure that “worked out fine” since she and her brother both went to university. For Heywood, those years were unusual, isolating, and never the privileged life her parents claimed.