Tom Simmat Author and illustrator of 60 Days

Architect, artist, boat builder, ocean racer, ultramarathon kayaker — and in all of them, a maker.

Tom Simmat has spent his working life designing places for people to live and gather: homes, housing, resorts, aged care and community buildings across Sydney. He brings an artist’s eye to every one of them, and the buildings carry the same care as his drawings. The same hands paint portraits, illustrate books, and design and build furniture.

The sea has been the other constant. He rebuilt Didgeridoo, a 1948 Knud Reimers double-ender, and raced her to Hobart on a shoestring in 1970 and 1971; she is the boat behind Svarlin in these books. In 1969 he sailed the 17-foot Tom Thumb II to Lord Howe Island — possibly the smallest yacht ever to make the crossing — and has been back many times since.

On rivers he has gone further still, often in kayaks he designed and built himself: records in Australia’s great ultramarathons on the Murray and the Hawkesbury, races in Hawaii, Canada and Alaska, and in 2010, victory in the 1,600-kilometre race down the Yukon.

60 Days brings it all together: a sailor’s knowledge of the coast, a boat builder’s eye for a hull, and an artist’s hand in every illustration.