A Love For Boats May Have Proved To Be Fatal

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday April 4, 1994

By BERNARD ZUEL

The asbestos-related mesothelioma which killed Nick Masterman in January took 25 years to show itself, but when it did its effect was swift and brutal

The former Green Independent councillor on Leichhardt Council was 45 when doctors diagnosed the tumour on the outer lining of his lungs as advanced mesothelioma last November.

Five weeks later he was dead.

Though it never could be proved, the asbestos fibres which led to his fatal illness were probably inhaled between 1965 and 1970 when the young Nickolas Masterman worked as a shipwright's apprentice at Cockatoo Island.

Until the 1970s, asbestos was widely used in manufacturing and building, and the ship industry in particular used the cheap and readily available material to insulate steam and high-temperature pipes.

Mesothelioma has an incubation time of 20 to 30 years. Unaware of its presence in his body, Nick Masterman - who spent all his years in Numa Street, Birchgrove - led a life in which boats and the sea were never far away.

After his apprenticeship he won a Rotary scholarship to Japan as a naval architect and not long after his return began his own business making wooden boats from the design of an old rig.

He also began restoring old boats. One of those was the former Tasmanian steam yacht Ena, owned by the Sydney stockbroker Mr Rene Rivkin, which Mr Masterman sailed to Fremantle for the America's Cup races in 1987 -circumnavigating Australia in the process.

One of his fellow councillors and neighbours, Ms Helen Styles, said of him that "he loved restoring past beauties". But as his partner, Ms Christine O'Brien, explained, the future meant as much to him as the past.

"He had a sense of place and was concerned with creating a safe and healthy environment for people to live in," Ms O'Brien said.

This led him to stand for election to the council in 1990 on a platform of managed urban development and commitment to the environment.

The Mayor of Leichhardt, Councillor Larry Hand, told those attending Mr Masterman's funeral that the newly elected councillor "hit Leichhardt Council like a hurricane".

Mr Masterman had fought for and won a new energy efficient building policy, foreshore and seawall improvements and a council policy supporting light rail rather than motor vehicles through the crowded suburbs of the municipality.