Parents of Lancaster man lost at sea off New Zealand coast file 'Presumption of Death' notice seven years after he went missing

Matt, who would have been 42 on Tuesday March 10, was aboard a 70ft wooden schooner in the Tasman Sea when it was hit by a storm in 2013.

His father Ian told the Lancaster Guardian this week that the fate of the vessel and its crew remains a mystery, but the family needed some closure.

The Green Party activist was one of seven people aboard the vessel, called the Nina, when the storm hit on June 4.

Matt was on the final leg of a three-year round the world trip when the Nina got into difficulties off New Zealand’s North Island en route to Australia.

The boat last made contact on the day of the storm, when an undelivered text message warned its sails had been shredded.

The Rescue Co-ordination Centre in New Zealand (RCCNZ) spent 11 days searching but failed to locate the boat or any survivors.

As he crossed the Pacific on a freighter ship a year earlier, Matt, aged 35 at the time, wrote in his online blog that his worst nightmare was being overwhelmed by a tsunami. He wrote: “Die in the ocean and they’ll probably never find your body. Your life, and the physical proof of your existence, will both be gone at the same time.”

The wooden schooner had faced 50mph winds and swells of up to 8m high, said RCCNZ.

This week, his parents, who live in Orpington, Kent, issued a Presumption of Death notice in the High Court of Justice for their son, who had lived in Lancaster for 10 years prior to travelling the world.

Matt, who lived in Ashfield Avenue, Lancaster, worked for arts organisation Folly at The Storey, and stood as a Green Party county councillor in the city.

He also worked for Sustrans in Preston, and regularly posted online videos and blogs about his travels, and environmentalism.

Matt is credited with the “re-branding” of the Green Party while working as its Communications and Publicity Officer in 2004.

Rupert Read, a close friend of Matt’s and spokesperson for the UK arm of the environmental movement Extinction Rebellion, said Matt had come up with the “Real Progress” slogan for the Green Party, which sought to place an emphasis on “actually making people’s lives better” rather than seeing progress as “just an increase in GDP”.

In July 2014, a year after the search for the Nina was suspended, Matt’s family held a celebration of life for him.

His father Ian said: “We didn’t say he had died, or that he hadn’t, but everyone knew the uncertain position.

"We lit candles for the seven crew members."

Family, friends, and colleagues attended, with a significant Green Party contingent that included Rupert Read, now spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion, and Sian Berry, now co-leader of the Green Party.

Ian said: “Nothing has ever been found to indicate what happened to the Nina and crew.

After the RCCNZ official search, relatives employed a US search organisation, Texas Equusearch, to coordinate further searching, and this went on for months.

“More air searches were carried out and hundreds of thousands of satellite pictures were scoured by thousands of people worldwide to identify possible sightings of the schooner or life-raft.

“The most likely possibilities were followed by air searches or detailed examination by authorities, but to no avail. The fate of the vessel and crew remains a mystery.

“There was an official review of the RCCNZ search in 2014, which identified quite a few learning points to improve Search and Rescue.

“Hopefully these have been acted on, worldwide.

“We do now actively support Water Aid, as Matthew had set up, before leaving New Zealand, a birthday appeal with the US ‘Charity Water’, and released a video about the global water crisis.”

Ian said that various parts of Matt’s blog, The Ocean, which he wrote while crossing the Pacific, still haunt him.

He said: “Did Matthew have time to realise that what he had written was happening?

"We really hope not – and hope that it all ended quickly.

"And that he didn’t die slowly in a lifeboat, wondering why his parents hadn’t come to save him.

"We hope that he had no time to regret that he wouldn’t lie in a grave and that we wouldn’t have a body to mourn over or even a certainty of death to mourn over.

“No time to regret everything he hadn’t done. Especially no time to feel pain.”

Ian said that he raised questions and concerns about the schooner prior to the voyage across the Tasman Sea, but trusted his son enough to believe it was as safe as it could be.

He added: “He’s never out of our minds for very long, every day many little things ringing a bell to remind us of him.

“But we regret what might have been.

"He would have liked to have been the first Green Prime Minister; obviously unlikely but (as friends all over the world have said) he did have a ‘presence’ that had so much potential.

“Perhaps as broadcaster, or an MP. Ambitions that can’t be achieved, and we’re much the worse for that.”

Mr Read added: “I was a close friend of Matt and co-executor of his will before he left.

“It’s very hard coming to terms with the fact that Matt is dead because he was such a fantastic person and also a wonderful activist and contributor to the world.

“He was so determined to make the world a better place. I often think of him and try to make sure that the work that I do to try to make the world a better place is work that he would be proud of.”