Last updated 13:19, June 10 2018
DAVID WHITE / STUFF
Craig Koning, boss of the Floating Foundation, says he will be aboard its 2018 expedition to the South Pacific despite calls from his board and former crew to stand down.
Craig Koning, boss of the Floating Foundation, says he will be aboard its 2018 expedition to the South Pacific despite calls from his board and former crew to stand down.
Those close to Craig Koning call him a Pied Piper, seducing numerous young women into joining him in a tropical dream of his own creation. But afloat on the Pacific Ocean with him, as the verbal and psychological abuse worsened, the only place to go was overboard.
When her new boss first hit on her at the party in New York, Lindsay Gonzalez says, she turned him down flat. She wasn't too fazed; she'd already spoken to two people who had warned her about Craig Koning, the New Zealand-based founder of charity The Floating Foundation. The messages were kind of vague, but boiled down to: Don't get involved with him. "He'll chew you up and spit you out," one had said.
During a Skype interview two weeks earlier, Koning had offered Gonzalez the job of director of media on board the Floating Foundation's 2017 expedition to Tonga. It would be four months in a tropical paradise, berthed in the Pacific Ocean on a 120ft yacht. Days would be spent exploring the marine environment, helping with important conservation research, and providing medical training to villagers in remote communities.
Also, it would be fun. Gonzalez, a native New Yorker who was looking to make a positive change in her life, found Koning's energy for the work magnetic. "He's very charismatic, and when he speaks to you he makes you feel like you're the only one there," Gonzalez says. "I was really excited to work with him. I was like, look, here's this really passionate entrepreneur who's trying to do good for the world. I could learn from him."
So, she shelved the signs. He took her rejection on the chin, and she figured that was that. She'd worked for tough bosses before, and she figured she could handle Koning. "I was just like 'But a boat! In Tonga! And it's charity work and it's such a good opportunity, and I'll feel good about myself'. I was warned, and I didn't quite listen like I should have."
Ayla Tarrant, former community manager for the Floating Foundation, was a target of Craig Koning's psychological abuse.
Two months later, Gonzalez's footprints follow her across the wooden deck as she walks back to her cabin, shaking. She peels off her clothes and looks down. Is that her blood on the floor?
Now, all she can think is: I need to get the hell off this boat.
Gonzalez stays. But by the end of the voyage, two women will quit, one will need treatment for depression, and Koning will leave the boat amid fears of mutiny.
Craig Koning worked as an events promoter and DJ before founding his own charity.
'A FLOATING HAREM'
Koning is down at Auckland's Westhaven Marina this week, working with a group of backpackers to ready his latest ship, the Southern Progress, for his fourth Pacific mission.
As he actively recruits for the 2018 expedition, he faces allegations of sexist bullying, failing to create a safe environment for those on board, and abusing his position of power to seduce the young women in his employ.
Aline Recchia, former aquatic leader, started having anxiety attacks on-board Floating Foundation's 2017 voyage due to Craig Koning's bullying.
Allegations include that he berated and manipulated the women on board to the point where two were having regular anxiety attacks; and populated the boat with female volunteers and crew as young as 17, who were the targets of his psychological abuse and sexual attention. Those who tried to leave the confined environment – referred to by Tongans on shore as his "floating harem" – found it difficult, with visa and logistical issues exacerbated by Koning's poor management.
In an interview with Stuff this week, Koning acknowledges he bullied and had sex with volunteers and crew and that it was unprofessional. He admits to excessive drinking and nudity and accepts he has to change. Of the bullying, he says: "To treat them that way was really inappropriate and I feel upset thinking about it. I honestly cringe and feel hurt when I think of my behaviours last year."
He has sought therapy, and says he still needs to apologise to the 2017 crew.
Initially, he did not consider entering sexual relationships with those under his leadership as problematic. He says he had sex with fewer than six people on board the boat in 2017. "It was a boat of young people. Young people around the sea, romances do start up." And some of the crew including Gonzalez, he says, were like sisters to him – he would never make a pass at her.
When questioned further, he concedes: "I would say that looking back I wouldn't condone any relationships with volunteers because of the perceived power thing. I wouldn't call it abusive but it's probably not appropriate to be having relations with members of the crew."
Gary Paul, director of operations for Floating Foundation's 2017 voyage, quit in January due to ongoing concerns over Craig Koning's treatment of women.
So how did it get to this?
NAKED AMBITION
A self-styled philanthropist born into wealth, Koning gained charitable status for his organisation, the Floating Foundation, in early 2017. Several people spoken to for this story referred to Koning as the "Pied Piper," for his charm as a leader. As a DJ and events promoter for Rhythm and Sands, the Thailand offshoot of festival Rhythm and Vines, Koning cut a charismatic figure in the high-energy dance scene in late-2000s Auckland, organising mini-festivals and exclusive mansion parties with his friends, dubbed the SHIFT crew.
When that disbanded, around 2013, Koning set off to sail around Tonga. Visiting local villages, he found they were starved of basic medical knowledge, and made it his mission to help. In 2015, he secured a trimaran for the Foundation's first official voyage, and went on to appoint a board comprised of two university friends.
In his shirtsleeves in a promotional video, Koning explains his work. "The Floating Foundation is like a start-up, disrupting a broken industry dominated by expensive, large boats offering few expeditions to only the most privileged researchers," he says, smiling down the lens. "Every scientist we speak to is so excited at the possibility of affordable access to the environmental frontline."
Ayla Tarrant: "If you don't repent, it won't end".
As well as attracting researchers, the Floating Foundation's stated aim is to relieve poverty in remote Pacific Islands by providing medical education and supplies. One of its major sponsors is Ricoh, who have hosted fundraisers and sent volunteers on board in 2016 and 2017. Tongan Health Minister Dr Saia Puikala is listed as a patron, and high-profile supporters include prominent paediatrician and Stuff health columnist Dr Tom Mulholland.
By all accounts, the Foundation's goals are admirable. "It is a brilliant idea," says Gary Paul, who joined the team as director of operations in early 2017. He'd been friends with Koning since 2014, when they met in Tonga while Paul was working for another charity. "It's a sustainable way of giving villagers the ability to provide each other medical attention. They learn, and keep those skills.
"It's a wonderful charity, and the chance to spend half the year on a boat is also wonderful."
This was among the reasons why Auckland poet Simone Kaho, 40, who is of Tongan descent, had been attracted to the previous year's expedition. "I had dreams that Va'vau was the most beautiful place in Tonga so I wanted to go there, and I'd just been drifting in my career. It felt like it was providing some really critical things for me, revisiting Tonga and this altruistic aspect, helping there and taking medical supplies to the island. And also just being on a ship sounds so amazing."
For the 2017 expedition, Koning had secured the use of a 120-foot expedition yacht, which included its own captain. Koning and Paul then hired three more crew members, for a core crew of five. This crew would be on board for the whole expedition, organising the supplies, volunteers, training, food, promotional needs and daily activities. Volunteers paid around $120 per day for an 11 or 12-day outreach mission, where the boat would make a trip to a remote village for medical training. Those who liked it could triple the length of their stay.
By early June, that year's crew had gathered at the Floating Foundation's headquarters, a kind of house-cum-office in Mangawhai Heads, a surf spot north of Auckland. Koning, Paul and Gonzalez were joined by Aline Recchia, a diving instructor from Brazil who was to be aquatic leader, and Ayla Tarrant, a New Zealander whose role was community manager.
The weeks before departure were consumed with logistics, with Koning and Paul taking the lead on volunteer recruitment. After filling out an online form, potential volunteers would undergo a Skype interview.
"It was basically one hour of him [Koning] giving a promo about how great it was to live on a boat in Tonga, you get to visit caves, go scuba diving, you'll really love it, rah rah rah," says a 2017 volunteer, who does not want to be named. "By the end you're visualising drinking rum out of coconuts on the beach – real fancy, real romantic."
Women who tried to leave found that the foundation had bungled their visas.
Most of the volunteers were young women, open to what Koning was selling; an island adventure in a tropical paradise, a hedonistic trip with charitable aims where you could both lose and find yourself.
During the time in Mangawhai, Gonzalez says, Koning occasionally lost his cool. "There were a couple of times when his reactions seemed aggressive, and made the overall feeling in the room uncomfortable, but nothing so major that I felt like I needed to run." On June 14, the crew left Auckland bound for Tonga.
Within the first week, Gonzalez's discomfort grew. While she was mid-shower, on a lower deck, Koning walked in casually while on a phone call, asking if he could talk there as there was no other private spaces on the boat. "It wasn't really a question – he was there, sitting on the stairs, and I was naked. I was startled and finished my shower quickly with my back turned to him as he continued his call. As I walked back to my cabin, I noticed the many empty spaces on the deck and inside the saloon," she says.
Koning doesn't recall the incident: he says people were naked on board all the time.
"Personally, I am unfazed by nudity," Gonzalez says. "I understand that living and working in close quarters on a ship is not a normal situation – people get to know one another more quickly. But Craig was my boss. A leader. An authority figure. In what world would this behaviour be considered appropriate?"
DRUNK AND DANGEROUS
July 4 is a national holiday in Tonga, with country's biggest festival celebrating the birthday of King Tupou VI. The fuchsia petals of the heilala, Tonga's national flower, unfurl from the necks of partying locals and expats.
That day, the crew were invited onboard the La Glorieuse, a French navy vessel also docked at Vava'u. After a morning of French fries washed down by liquor, Gonzalez, Paul, Tarrant and a volunteer went back to the boat to rest. Koning went into town, alone.
When he returned in the late afternoon he was so drunk he could barely walk, Gonzalez later recalled in a formal complaint to the Floating Foundation's board. "Craig insisted that we all together go for a swim and in attempting to take off his pants. He fell onto his back, kicked his legs in the air and [said] 'take off boss's pants' a number of times."
He stumbled over to Gonzalez, scooping her up. She yelled at him to put her down, kicking her legs as he half-fell, half-walked over to the side of the boat and threw her overboard. On her way down, Gonzalez hit the taut dinghy rope and felt a searing pain between her legs, before the waters closed over her head. When she emerged, gasping for breath, Koning was in the water beside her, laughing.
She swam over to the back of the boat, heaving herself up, with Koning close behind. "I was pointing out one of the bruises on my body when Craig laughed and shoved me quite hard once again despite my telling him not to push me, not to push me, not to push me," the report recounts.
Gonzalez's knee struck metal as she plunged back into the water.
As detailed in an incident report recorded by Paul four days later, Gonzalez was left with a severe bruise on her inner left wrist, scrapes across both her lower legs, and a laceration to her labia that bled for an hour.
Gonzalez, livid and in shock, went back to her cabin and tried to patch herself up while searching flights out of Tonga. She decided to hold off until morning, intending to get Koning to pay. But in daylight, when Gonzalez confronted him about his disrespectful treatment of her, Tarrant and Recchia, Koning launched into a lengthy apology.
"He had a breakdown, he was very upset," Gonzalez says. "He confided in me about his childhood. He said he needed help but he didn't know where to turn, and he doesn't have any friends, and I just empathised, you know. I thought 'This guy just really needs somebody to help him and I can be the hero'. That was me being naive." He promised her he would change.
This week, Koning, who accepts Gonzalez's description of the incident, says it was "an unfortunate end to the afternoon, but we were just playing around."
He could get "older-brotherly" sometimes, he says. "It was maybe a bit too far and I threw Lindsay overboard, which normally would have been fine but not when you hit a rope."
Asked if he pushed her a second time when she was trying to get back onto the boat, Koning says that might have happened. "I'm not sure, but possibly. You know those situations, one thing leads to the next. It was followed up pretty seriously. But it wasn't malicious or anything."
As time went on, Paul found himself in a difficult position. He admired the work of the Foundation, and he was friends with Koning. He was aware of Koning's malevolence towards the crew, but found himself trying to mitigate and downplay it to keep the peace. "When he got stressed he would take it out on others very aggressively, and I eventually realised he was taking out his aggression almost exclusively on the women," Paul says.
"I don't want to say it was a sexual way, but it was certainly a gendered way. He would pick who he thought was the weakest in the room and it was always a woman in the room, in his eyes. At the time I was a bit slow on the uptake. I was still viewing it purely as a stress thing, but it was a major problem."
Recchia, whose English was not fluent, was an easy target. Koning would stand over her, yelling in her face over a simple thing, like the right way to tie a knot.
Craig Koning aboard the Floating Foundation's new boat, the Southern Progress, preparing it for 2018's voyage.
"Things got weird almost straight away," Recchia, 33, says "He started treating me like a child, like 'Don't go there, don't do this.' He speaks really fast. I would ask "Sorry, can you repeat?" and he would repeat it faster and be angry with me because I couldn't understand him. Everyone had always told me I was a good diving instructor but there I started feeling like a fraud, like all those years were a lie."
Asked specifically about Recchia, Koning said she was "super intuitive, she's super kind, but she didn't really step up to the role I was hoping for her." He didn't consider his bullying of her as worse than anyone else.
After recording Gonzalez's complaint, Paul was unsure of what to do; the two members of the board were Koning's university friends, and he was Koning's employee. After two months, and repeated requests from Gonzalez, he forwarded it to board members Eleshea D'Souza and Elliott Blade.
Nothing came of it until Tuesday June 5, 11 months after the incident. It was several weeks after Stuff had begun to investigate this story and ask questions, when D'Souza and Blade presented Koning with a two-page report and a recommendation he stay off the boat for the 2018 expedition.
SINKING SPIRITS
Tarrant, who had known Koning the longest, was the first to leave. She'd dated him during the Auckland dance party days, and had been convinced to join the mission as community leader after picking up her friendship with Koning again in 2016.
When they'd been a couple, Koning had been quick to anger. But he assured her he had changed, and Tarrant gave him the benefit of the doubt. "I wrote Craig's old problems off as a social issue," Tarrant says. "He was young, had demons, stuff to work on, you know?"
But within the close confines of the boat, it became apparent this was not the case. At the beginning of the voyage, Koning and Tarrant rekindled their romance. But according to those who witnessed Koning's regular outbursts, the relationship quickly grew abusive.
A 2017 team leader, who did not want to be named, said watching Koning speaking to Tarrant made her feel sick. "He'd say, 'you're an idiot. You're useless. I told you before don't do it that way.' But the energy that comes out when he says that, it's like 'I hate you and you need to be destroyed.' You can feel the rage. The whole time he's like vibrating."
One day, the boat ran out of cooking oil, and the right type was unavailable on shore. Tarrant faced a barrage of verbal abuse. "There's no 'why', he's just straight to the bat – 'You're incapable'," she says.
"If you don't repent, it won't end. It won't end until you admit you're bad. He'll just twist your words and twist your words until all you can say is 'I'm so sorry, please forgive me master'.
"It's actually kind of mind-boggling. How you can be like 'Hey actually, this is not right, I'm going to stand up for myself here'. But in minutes you're just broken down and you go to your room to just cry about how shit you are. Then there's the apology, a few hours later, 'Please will you forgive me'.We all went through it, every single one of us."
Tarrant and Recchia began to doubt their abilities. Moored in the middle of the vast ocean, they felt trapped, anxious. Tarrant would come into Recchia's room at night, crying, and the women would cuddle together for support. Recchia, who had experienced depression in the past but had been stable at the voyage's beginning, began to have panic attacks.
Unbeknown to Tarrant, Koning was also having sex with a volunteer. "F", 25, who does not want her real name used for personal reasons, had viewed Koning as a hunky humanitarian. He seemed to find her fascinating, and their two-week long fling involved private sunset sailing adventures, and sunset wines. By his preference, she says, they never used a condom during sex.
On board the boat, which could hold more than a dozen volunteers at a time alongside crew, the community was casual and close-knit. It had a "Burning Man" vibe, the summer festival in the Nevada desert known for self-expression and communal love. It was hot, and clothing was at a minimum; they'd go skinny-dipping, lounge around watching movies in the spacious saloon, and have parties on the deck. Some nights, Koning would take a group out for a naked sail on a smaller boat in the moonlight. Once, the boat flipped over, dunking its intoxicated occupants in the ocean.
F's romance with Koning was short-lived. "Then the next flock of volunteers came in and you notice 'Oh my God, he's doing the exact same thing with all these other people.' She also discovered Koning had been having sex with Tarrant and another volunteer simultaneously, and that he had a girlfriend back in New Zealand.
Koning still has this partner, and an active Tinder profile stating he is single.
For F, the concern wasn't the promiscuity – she describes herself as a 'free-love' type – but she did worry about the unprotected sex. She says she also felt guilty for causing Tarrant pain, which was why she called it off. "She asked me once if I was having sex with Craig, and I was like 'yeah, for the last few weeks'," F says.
"And then she was like, 'oh my God! I thought you were … I asked him, but he kept outright denying it'."
SEX AND THE SISTERHOOD
The longer F stayed, the more volunteers she saw targeted by Koning.
Watching the seduction unfold made her embarrassed to have been sucked in herself. "I was an anomaly because I stayed for so long; most volunteers never had time to see through him," she says. "Some of the girls were much younger than me and I would say more vulnerable, more likely to fall for this person who has all the power."
Over time, Gonzalez says, the crew were able to pick those in the new wave of volunteers Koning would single out for sexual attention. "It's just sickening to look back on," she says. They were young, often had an air of naivete, and were always gorgeous. A kind of sisterhood grew on the boat; often the crew or a long-term volunteer would try to warn the new women. This was typically unsuccessful.
While the crew felt it was unprofessional and disruptive for the boss to be romancing volunteers who lived in a confined space under his edict, they were unsure what to do. It's not like it was illegal, right? "His behaviour was in these borderline grey areas… they're just these complex social situations that you're like 'well what can I actually do?'" Tarrant says.
"It's because he's in this position of power. The Foundation, and therefore Craig, is sanctioned by the New Zealand Government, because it has this charitable status. He's dealing with Government and all this money, so people naturally give him more respect and more sway because he's … you know what I mean?"
"At that stage we were all just scratching our heads and saying 'who should we even go to?' He is the top authority."
A crew member who asked not to be named said she felt Koning's conquests were distracting him from the Floating Foundation's real purpose; "I have a feeling he's doing all this to get with volunteers," she says.
"It is OK if it happens once in two months of your expedition, with someone you genuinely like … but it can't happen with every single group and in that group, with one or two or more people."
Others spoken to, including Kaho from 2016, echoed her concerns.
Koning denied this, saying "girls in bikinis on boats" hold no interest for him. "If I just wanted to have fun, I would." Doing humanitarian work brings him a natural joy. "It feels so real. It feels like it has meaning. I love being on the water, I love watching people break their own paradigms."
HUNTER OR HUNTED?
Asked now if he abused his power as expedition leader by having sex with multiple crew and volunteers, Koning initially insists his behaviour was not out of order. "I do think it's absolutely okay to meet someone younger than you, in a lower position than you and fall in love, get married, and that's your story."
Koning also says his sexual relationships were consensual, and denies there was a power imbalance. He didn't consider himself as the boss, he says. "So I'm only supposed to romantically involve myself with other leader figures? I'm not sure how that's supposed to work. I don't see myself in that kind of leader way. I see myself as pretty much … honestly, I'm not the boss."
Asked who was the boss if not him, he said: "I guess I am in charge of the the whole operation at the end of the day. But I don't think that makes me in a position of power. Or to be more attractive because I have a leadership thing going on ... I'm new to this whole thing. I think it's becoming more apparent to me that it's not appropriate.
"Looking back, no matter how the parties felt about it in the moment, it's probably best for the foundation to not condone such things. But you know, I don't necessarily feel like I was the hunter."
Tarrant, like others spoken to, says she stayed so long out of loyalty to the foundation's work. In the end, she felt bad for leaving. "I did see the positive effects of the things that we were doing. We had elders stand up at the village ceremonies to thank us, they're crying. For giving them tools and skills they've never had before."
But it wasn't only her sense of guilt that stopped her from flying home. Weeks after coming on board, Koning told the entire crew they were technically overstayers as he had botched their visa paperwork.
"It was like 'surprise! You're actually stuck here because your visa's expired'," said Tarrant.
Two-and-a-half months into the voyage, when Tarrant was at breaking point, Paul offered to book her a flight out – provided she could get to the customs office on Tongatapu Island and sort out her own visa. The officials told her she could pay a hefty fine and leave immediately, but she'd get a big black deportation stamp in her passport and never be allowed to enter Tonga again.
Tarrant's heart sank, tears welled, and the customs officer took pity on her. She said he gave her the new visa with a stern "don't do it again" – and she was finally free to go.
Kaho, the Tongan-Kiwi poet who left the 2016 voyage early amid safety and bullying concerns, believes Koning's philanthropic work should not be a shield. "There are people like me who see him as damaging and someone who needs to be stopped, and there are people who really buy what he peddles which is this white saviour on a yacht in the Pacific, helping people," she says.
"If you're not looking at him saying 'this guy is spouting a lot of shit,' you're buying it. He knows the effects he has on people, and he knows the wonderstruck, anticipatory attitude people come on board with – which is quite ripe for f...ing if you're looking at it in a sexually predatory way. He has this captive set of targets on the ship."
MUTINY IN THE PACIFIC
By early October, tensions had reached breaking point. When Recchia looked at the ocean, she imagined what it would feel like to sink. Her current partner, whom she met in Tonga, convinced her to leave. She flew back to New Zealand.
"Now I'm better, but before I couldn't even talk about it," she says. "After I left the boat I had three nights of terrible nightmares about him [Koning] then I spent a whole day and a whole night crying. I didn't have any motivation to be alive. I was feeling a fraud, an incapable person. My dreams were just destroyed, I was in a bad, bad place."
Within 24 hours of Recchia leaving, Gonzalez had had enough. She told Paul she was quitting, and taking a 17-year-old American intern – whom she says was also the subject of Koning's bullying – with her.
Paul, who feared a mutiny from the two remaining female staff if Gonzalez and the intern left, sat Koning down. "I told him it was best for him to physically leave the boat," Paul recalls. "I told him to save the foundation he had to leave, because everyone was leaving and we couldn't run the volunteers with just one or two people. To his credit, he immediately agreed. He flew out the next day.
"At the time I thought I did the right thing, looking back on it I wish I had done something earlier. It was a highly complex environment, people are complicated. I can't change the past, we took action in the end and made Craig leave the the boat. It's hard to judge the severity of everything when you're in the middle of it all."
Koning says he chose to leave because he was in a 'really shitty emotional space'."
Koning returned briefly a fortnight later, to host a New Zealand paediatrician whose visit had already been arranged. By that time, almost everyone else had left.
Paul, who still believed in the Foundation's work and Koning's assertions he was dealing with his anger issues, flew back to Auckland and Mangawhai Heads to wrap up the year's work. But in January this year, he tendered his own resignation. "I did want to stay, but I felt that he wouldn't change and I felt like I would end up apologising for him more than helping him. I was afraid he would end up controlling me, and in ten years I'd have to be getting women to sign waivers before entering the boat," Paul says.
"I thought the only thing that might make him change was if I left. But the fact he's still going, I think I underestimated his ability to survive on his own."
'I WANT TO BE AWESOME'
At Westhaven Marina this week, another bunch of volunteers help Koning spruce up his new charter ship, the Southern Progress. The next expedition departs August, and he intends to be on it.
At a nearby cafe, a waitress brings him a glass of passionfruit juice with cinnamon. "Beautiful," he says, looking into her eyes as she places the drink in front of him.
Koning says over the last ten years, friends and colleagues have made him aware of his aggression. He has promised to change in the past. He says this time is different. "You know what, it's like you come out of a cloud. There was so much darkness. I had to process so many emotional problems."
He says thinking about last year gave him the "douche chills" – a feeling of disgust at how his behaviour had affected someone innocent – which motivated him to be better.
"I could go and get a normal job and live a pretty chill life, and never have to deal with all this," he says.
"That's totally acceptable, but I don't want that. I want to be exceptional, I want to be awesome. I want people to say 'wow, that was so cool that Craig made us feel so good'."
#METOONZ INVESTIGATION
Contact Alison Mau privately by messaging her Facebook or Twitter page, or email alison.mau@stuff.co.nz
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