He lived his life with candour in the wind.
Lou Abrahams, who completed 44 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Races and won the gruelling bluewater classic twice, has died aged 86.
A humble man, an honest fighter - you need to be to do 44 Hobarts - Abrahams has been remembered as a sailing icon who helped lay the foundations for Australia's modern dominance of the sport.
The stubble-bearded Melburnian began his career in 1963 as bowman aboard Winston Churchill - an appropriate yacht for a sailor who went on to display bulldog spirit in just about everything he did.
"He should have died years earlier because he had every ailment known to man - but he was a fighter," his close friend Rohan Simpson told AAP.
"The majority of us would say `oh it's all just too hard'. But that's not how he was.
"I saw him the night before last and he was not conscious but you could tell with his breathing that he was still fighting."
Simpson, who completed 20 Sydney-Hobarts with Abrahams, recalls the deadly 1998 race in which big Victorian policeman Garry Schipper went overboard.
Schipper was hit by a huge wave and flew like a rag doll into the sea.
There was no moon, no help and little hope.
But with Abrahams leading his crew aboard 41ft Challenger Again, Schipper was rescued inside ten minutes - a remarkable feat in such treacherous seas.
Soon after, their yacht was in Bass Strait, heading north for Eden and ready to quit the race, when Abrahams had a change of heart.
"He said: `you know what? we're going to complete this race'," Simpson added.
The yacht turned south and reached Hobart - just one of 44 yachts (out of 115 starters) to do so that year."
Abrahams would not quit.
"I knew him as every yachtsman does; as a true gentleman and a sailing legend," said Cruising Yacht Club of Australia (CYCA) commodore Howard Piggott.
Iain Murray, CEO of Australia's new America's Cup challenger team, added: "He was a very successful person but he came completely de-coupled from all of that.
"He was incredibly humble for his success; a man of simple means who just wanted to go sailing."
Before sailing, Abrahams had been involved with motor racing, demonstrating the early signs of his flair and appetite for dangerous adventure.
In the 1950s he set the Australian land-speed record with a self-built car that reached 256km/h at Coonabarabran, NSW.
But the ocean became his passion and he went on to win the Sydney-Hobart in 1983 and 1989 before quitting in 2007, aged 80, after admitting the rigours of the great sprint south had become too much.
His record of completing 43 Sydney-Hobarts in a row (he missed just the 1964 race) remains unbeaten.
He also completed seven Fastnets - the tough, biennial race off Britain and Ireland.
Both the CYCA and Abrahams' local club, Sandringham Yacht Club are planning memorials.
