Every boat crew that has ever taken to the water has one thing in common.
I hear you speculate that it is a “love of the water” or “a common bond of mateship and male bonding” or even “a desire to get away from the womenfolk for a few days.”
You’d be wrong.
The correct answer is snoring. Put your hand up if you’ve never laid awake on a boat or in a motel unit during a fishing trip listening to the horrific symphony that is the half pissed boatie praying through his nose to the Gods of marine mischief.
On every boat crew there at least one really bad snorer. Usually there are more. And why is it that the worst snorers take the least time to get to sleep? It takes the really bad snorer an average of about 30 seconds before they are bellowing away while the rest of us wrap our pillows around our heads and know … it’s going to be a long, long night.
Of course most boating trips involve a few … well, Ok quite a lot of …. medicinal snifters. And this is like adding a turbo to the snore, as any good wife can tell you. Even the quietest sleeper, with alcohol added, can make fearsome noises at about the same volume as a Mack truck with a busted exhaust grinding up over the Rimutakas.
Please note: nicknames in this article have not been changed to protect the innocent. These blokes need to fully appreciate just how much noise their finely tuned noses can generate.
The Jon B snore.
Takes pride of place as the man who introduced me to really bad snoring when we sailed as crew on a 46ft ocean racing yacht. I didn’t know it was possible to snore so hard and still remain alive. The fact that he didn’t wake in the morning with his whole face turned inside out and his nose dragged half way down his wind pipe, was truly staggering. Is cacaphonise a word? It should be.
The Kezza snore
It’s rumoured that no one has ever heard this snore. That’s because he’s such a tight arse that rather than pay for a camp or motel to stay at, he brings his truck, parks it down the road and sleeps in the back of that. And readers, you can be sure that no red blooded male is ever going to share those accommodations with him.
The Billy snore
An unusual animal, this, and tends to take two forms. The first is a full on bellow, like a cow with bloat stuck under 3 half rusty sheets of corrugated iron. The second follows the ingestion of several party pills and looks, and sounds, like Mr Bean after drinking 43 cups of strong coffee and a bottle of rum. This can be both funny and deeply disturbing.
The Ski snore
Rattles off his nose at a thousand miles and hour, while his mouth babbles a mixture of slurred profanity and 103% proof alcohol breath. When he gets like this you’re best to padlock him to something solid because he invariably thinks it would be a good idea to get on a kayak or into a leaky old dinghy borrowed from the foreshore and venture out into fast flowing current to catch live baits. Keep him snoring, that’s the answer with this boy.
The Boulder snore
This is capable of sonically stripping the paint off the walls of motel units and the front runner from the hull sides. Its not often you find someone who can snore at both ends simultaneously, but somehow this man has mastered the art..
The Squid snore
If you can imagine the entire American “desert storm” campaign taking place inside a small corrugated iron shed, you will be part way to understanding this man’s snore. Possibly the champion snorer of all time. So powerful it has the potential to blow the door open and shove your bed half way down the road or out around into the middle of the bay.
The group snore
The fisho’s version of synchronised swimming. Too horrible to even imagine. If you wake up in the night to take a jimmy riddle and come back to the group snore - it’s time to go out and catch livebaits for the morning fishing because there is no way you are going to get back to sleep any time soon.
The Shane Kelly snore
A gentle purr reminiscent of the wind sighing through the rigging. The ironic thing about my snoring, is that the addition of earplugs to drown out the others’ snores causes the volume to rise until it sounds like the howling of a bull that has tripped and caught his nads in a cattle stop. Serves them right.
And there’s never a time when I don’t take a set of good earplugs on a boating trip, ever. That’s one other thing Jon B showed me. Cheers Jon.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
Testing, Testing
The life of the boating journalist is littered with boat tests. Generally I hate the things. You get a few hours to learn all about a boat – a job that takes any competent boatie a good 6 months.
But for me, one such test stands out above all others over the years. It’s bound to be memorable when you nearly get blown up by a runaway volcano, eaten by sharks and had to prevent someone from being chucked over the side 20 miles out at sea.
The 18ft runabout was the hottest new thing in the late 1980s. We picked up the boat in Auckland to drive to Tauranga, where we were staying with our fishing guide, who was a mate of a mate.
A couple of things we learned early on in this trip:
Discovery Number 1: Ford Sierras do not like towing 18ft boats up over the Kaimais. We first realised the car was getting hot and bothered when the boat disappeared behind a haze of oil smoke boiling out of the transmission. A few litres of tranny fluid and a carwash to get the oil soot off the boat soon had things restored. The Sierra remained dodgy until one of the secretaries eventually put it out of its misery in a motorway nose to tail.
Discovery Number 2: If you are going to be spending the weekend in the company of, and staying at the home of, a blatantly gay fishing guide, it is best to leave your hardcore homophobic Maori friend at home in the Hokianga.
Our plan for the day was to go out through the Whakatane Bar and have a crack at yellowfin tuna fishing. The tuna were running strong and our total lack of experience only made us keener. We had even borrowed some lures and a couple of big-game rods.
We crossed the Whakatane bar on a stunning day and were soon miles out, amongst yellowfin workups. It was only then we made discovery number 3 – you need snap swivels to make your main line and leader talk to each other.
We combined the leader and the tuna lure’s leader with a few loops of carefully tied nylon and set off trying to the tuna. This rig was likely to be as useful on the boat as a wheelbarrow, but we were determined.
The tuna would feed on the surface for a short period, then sound and swim with incredible speed to pop up several hundred metres away a few seconds later.
We worked on trying to figure out where the fish would pop up, and being there before them. As a fishing strategy it was flawed, but eventually we did get amongst the tuna.
The yellowfin erupted round the boat and we held our breath in huge anticipation – until our fishing guide decided that broadcasting what was happening to all the other boats in the area was more important than concentrating on steering.
He let go of the wheel and picked up the radio handset. The resulting right hand turn by the boat and severe tangling of the gear was the end of our only chance at catching tuna that day. We had to lash our Hokianga mate in the far corner of the boat before homicide was committed.
White Island beckoned. We landed and explored the destroyed sulphur factory and crater – which responded by erupting and sending a huge cloud of sulphuric ash skywards. Suffering from extreme rectal puckering we vacated smartly, until Geoff decided he wanted photos of the boat with the eruption in the background. He inflated the cheap blow up boat he bought in the Farmer’s bargain bin and cast himself adrift while we positioned the boat.
Discovery Number 3: If you’ve bought something from the specials bin, chances are there is a reason for it being there. In the case on a cheap plastic inflatable, a puncture hole is a possible reason.
We managed to rescue Geoff – and about ten grands worth of camera gear, from his extremely floppy – but remember it was cheap – inflatable before all the air exited and he fed the lot to the White Island Great Whites.
The resulting photos made a spectacular cover.
Back to Tauranga for the evening where we carefully arranged ourselves to separate our fishing guide and the man from Northland. And we had an even bigger problem – we didn’t like the boat one bit.
Discovery Number 4: Even boats with the best pedigree can be bad.
We still had one day’s fishing off Tauranga, so for good measure we headed to out Astrolabe Reef in about 25 knots of breeze. We were determined to give the boat a good trial in the hope its rough water performance would win us over. We pretended the previous day had never happened.
We maintained our perfect record by catching no fish at Astrolabe, despite its reputation for huge kingis … so we headed to a “wreck” that our guide knew of and anchored there.
Determined, our Northland hardcore fisho set about catching fish. One “for my son’s dinner” he announced. One “for my daughter's dinner.” One “for my wife’s dinner.” And he continued, putting one after the other in the fish bin. Until the skipper decided that we “weren’t quite on the marks” and we “had to move.” We managed to subdue the most murderous tendencies of our Hokianga mate while a hundred metres of chain and rope were retrieved, we moved about 20ft and re-anchored.
We never caught another fish and we still didn’t like the boat.
But we did learn a few things.
But for me, one such test stands out above all others over the years. It’s bound to be memorable when you nearly get blown up by a runaway volcano, eaten by sharks and had to prevent someone from being chucked over the side 20 miles out at sea.
The 18ft runabout was the hottest new thing in the late 1980s. We picked up the boat in Auckland to drive to Tauranga, where we were staying with our fishing guide, who was a mate of a mate.
A couple of things we learned early on in this trip:
Discovery Number 1: Ford Sierras do not like towing 18ft boats up over the Kaimais. We first realised the car was getting hot and bothered when the boat disappeared behind a haze of oil smoke boiling out of the transmission. A few litres of tranny fluid and a carwash to get the oil soot off the boat soon had things restored. The Sierra remained dodgy until one of the secretaries eventually put it out of its misery in a motorway nose to tail.
Discovery Number 2: If you are going to be spending the weekend in the company of, and staying at the home of, a blatantly gay fishing guide, it is best to leave your hardcore homophobic Maori friend at home in the Hokianga.
Our plan for the day was to go out through the Whakatane Bar and have a crack at yellowfin tuna fishing. The tuna were running strong and our total lack of experience only made us keener. We had even borrowed some lures and a couple of big-game rods.
We crossed the Whakatane bar on a stunning day and were soon miles out, amongst yellowfin workups. It was only then we made discovery number 3 – you need snap swivels to make your main line and leader talk to each other.
We combined the leader and the tuna lure’s leader with a few loops of carefully tied nylon and set off trying to the tuna. This rig was likely to be as useful on the boat as a wheelbarrow, but we were determined.
The tuna would feed on the surface for a short period, then sound and swim with incredible speed to pop up several hundred metres away a few seconds later.
We worked on trying to figure out where the fish would pop up, and being there before them. As a fishing strategy it was flawed, but eventually we did get amongst the tuna.
The yellowfin erupted round the boat and we held our breath in huge anticipation – until our fishing guide decided that broadcasting what was happening to all the other boats in the area was more important than concentrating on steering.
He let go of the wheel and picked up the radio handset. The resulting right hand turn by the boat and severe tangling of the gear was the end of our only chance at catching tuna that day. We had to lash our Hokianga mate in the far corner of the boat before homicide was committed.
White Island beckoned. We landed and explored the destroyed sulphur factory and crater – which responded by erupting and sending a huge cloud of sulphuric ash skywards. Suffering from extreme rectal puckering we vacated smartly, until Geoff decided he wanted photos of the boat with the eruption in the background. He inflated the cheap blow up boat he bought in the Farmer’s bargain bin and cast himself adrift while we positioned the boat.
Discovery Number 3: If you’ve bought something from the specials bin, chances are there is a reason for it being there. In the case on a cheap plastic inflatable, a puncture hole is a possible reason.
We managed to rescue Geoff – and about ten grands worth of camera gear, from his extremely floppy – but remember it was cheap – inflatable before all the air exited and he fed the lot to the White Island Great Whites.
The resulting photos made a spectacular cover.
Back to Tauranga for the evening where we carefully arranged ourselves to separate our fishing guide and the man from Northland. And we had an even bigger problem – we didn’t like the boat one bit.
Discovery Number 4: Even boats with the best pedigree can be bad.
We still had one day’s fishing off Tauranga, so for good measure we headed to out Astrolabe Reef in about 25 knots of breeze. We were determined to give the boat a good trial in the hope its rough water performance would win us over. We pretended the previous day had never happened.
We maintained our perfect record by catching no fish at Astrolabe, despite its reputation for huge kingis … so we headed to a “wreck” that our guide knew of and anchored there.
Determined, our Northland hardcore fisho set about catching fish. One “for my son’s dinner” he announced. One “for my daughter's dinner.” One “for my wife’s dinner.” And he continued, putting one after the other in the fish bin. Until the skipper decided that we “weren’t quite on the marks” and we “had to move.” We managed to subdue the most murderous tendencies of our Hokianga mate while a hundred metres of chain and rope were retrieved, we moved about 20ft and re-anchored.
We never caught another fish and we still didn’t like the boat.
But we did learn a few things.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Boating Gear that Has Pissed Me Off
To most people, mechanical items are just inanimate objects. There to make life easier.
I know better. There have been quite a number of mechanical objects sent to this planet with the express purpose of pissing me off. You may recall the movie Love Bug, when the mechanic suddenly realises that his little VW Beetle, “Herby” has a personality? I can sympathise with that.
Ladies and gentlemen let me introduce you to some of the inanimate objects that have been sent to try my patience – the ones that have been possessed by aliens or even worse.
The most memorable and spectacular would have to be the hydraulic drive unit in a racing yacht on which I crewed for a couple of years in the
The drive unit weighed nearly as much as the moon and sounded like Black Sabbath played at 180 decibels and twice the normal speed. It was less efficient than a gang of Northland road workers and pushed the boat about the same speed as they move back to the job after a tea break.
The crowning glory was …. it was also completely unreliable. What that means is it was capable of suddenly splitting in half (while it was not being used I might add) and dumping gallons of stinking hydraulic oil into the bilge during a particularly rough ocean race when we already had a foot of water sloshing around down there.
It was also capable of instantly failing as we pulled into the berth at 5 knots. In the latter instance we had to politely remind the two blokes who were planning to stop this 46 footer by shoving against its bow – that they would be dead within seconds if they didn’t get the fing hell out of the way very pronto-ish. Yes we hit the marina; yes the boat rode up onto the pontoon nearly to the keel before sliding back. Yes we enjoyed the look of horror on the blokes’ faces as they realised how close they came to becoming roadkill.
It hated us all, that unit.
That same boat had “tacking” bunks, held up by blocks and tackle. They were fine with one person in them but on the odd occasion when a member of the crew was able to convince someone of the opposite sex to try them out, the blocks had a nasty habit of slipping a few inches and the bunk would drop suddenly. Depending on what you were doing at the time this could be enormously exciting .. or bloody terrifying. A broken penis is not a good look for a macho ocean racing bloke.
We decided to pull all the squabs off them – they were securely lashed all the way round but when we got them off we found a stash of porno mags beneath. The publication named “Dog 2” was voted by the crew to be the most amusing. It was printed in German but we were able to work out the general plot by way of the many photos. From that day anyone on the crew who stuffed up was called “Otto” for the day.
We put the mags back beneath when we re-lashed all the squabs in place, for someone else’s “enjoyment” at some time in the future.
The very nastiest piece of gear I ever experienced was an ancient Johnson 4hp outboard motor. I’m sure it was designed by the Armenian apprentice on a day when he was badly hungover and had caught his girlfriend in bed with his best mate (former) the night before.
It had a tilt release that was located at the back of the outboard, about one thumb-width below the exhaust pipe. Exhaust burns were therefore extremely common. Because it hated being used, it would frequently die.
To get at any of the internals the cowling had to be removed. It had a large screw on the top dead centre of the cowling which appeared to be what you undid to get the cowling off. Wrong. That screw held in place the 14 miles of tightly wound spring steel comprising the recoil starter mechanism. Undoing the nut would result in a dull “twang” and signal at least one whole day of frustrating hard work to wind it all back.
To get the cowling off you had to turn the outboard upside down and remove four tiny little nuts hidden way down in the bowels of the engine. I ended up making a special tool to get the things out – normal spanners and sockets would not go near them.
Have you ever tried to hold a 4hp auxiliary outboard upside down while you work deep inside its innards? I’m sure the thing was turned on by the excessive use of bad language. I was pleased to see it depart my life forever during a garage sale for the price of a box of Steinies.
Which brings me to the canopy on my last boat. A perfect example of the highest price guaranteeing that the product has been made by a mentally disabled dwarf.
It had a habit of allowing water straight through it, and thick drops of condensation would greet you in the morning if it was left up over night. The first time you went over a wave it would rain heavily inside the canopy.
It was also too short to stand under. Despite being low, it had no clear screen so unless you sat hunched up double your view was similar to being in a coal mine when the lights have gone out. Very safe.
Its favourite expression of hatred towards me was, when driving standing up through the rolled up front end, the forward stay would belt me on the back of my neck. It liked to do this often. It did this until the cheap brass domes furnished by the dwarf started parting company and rendered the canopy pretty much useless.
I was a happy man when the thing shook loose while towing and flogged itself into a hundred shards of expensive canvas. At least I got my own back, just for once, on a piece of possessed marine equipment.
All I can say is – be thankful that trailer boats don’t carry dunnies – the old plastic bucket has to try pretty hard to work up a hatred of human beings – even when they are doing horrible things into it.
Possessed marine toilets. There’s a whole column on that subject alone.
Monday, April 14, 2008
The Creation of Sharon – All Round Westie Smoker
There are times when something happens to make you realise that our brothers living over the other side of the Norwestern Motorway really are a different breed. It’s not just the matt black Holdens, FMBs and Mullet haircuts. Those are the mere outward manifestations of a deeply ingrained culture.
This is the story of one of those occasions.
The creation of a great device that I came to call the Westiebeast Smoker.
A group of my mates had been toiling away on this device for some months in a builder’s factory out the back of Henderson. They wanted the ultimate fish smoker. It had to be big, it had to be mean, it had to be mounted on a trailer for some reason (portability was judged to be important).
They had been working on it for a long time; mostly because their “working bees” had generally turned into sessions to see if they could drink Auckland dry of “Woodies” a foul kind of premixed bourbon and coke.
We were invited to see the great unveiling and experience the first firing up of this machine but when we arrived it was clear that things had not progressed quite as far as they’d like.
At first I wondered if the WBS was a westie version of the Trojan horse that had been designed to park outside the North Shore nurses home, but a greater and more noble purpose was soon unveiled.
We were given a tour of the machine with an explanation into where each part had come from. It could have made a movie script “One night on the Blag.”
(Best line of the night “what if the cops ask us what we’re looking for?” “Mate we don’t even know what we’re looking for so we’ll be sweet.”)
The basis of the WBS was a trailer – donated in parts by a business contact of my Panelbeaterwestie mate. It just needed welding together. No problem for someone used to cutting and shutting written off V8s.
On top of the trailer they had mounted a huge commercial clothes dryer – the thing had to be 2.5m high and about 1 metre deep. The massive drum and heating works had been removed and replaced with enough shelves to hold most of New Zealand’s fishing quota for the next 5 years.
They’re still trying to work out how to make a 2m diameter stainless drum into the hell berley pot but fitting a hiab crane onto a 6m trailer boat to deploy the thing is proving tricky. It sits in the corner mocking them and driving them crazy during their Thursday night “strategising sessions.”
The smoke production unit on the WBS was a 44 gallon drum mounted on its side and cut horizontally with a duct into the dryer air intake. There was enough room on the other side of the trailer to build a bin for storing wood.
But as we wandered around in awe of this achievement, the westies were all over the thing, hammering, drilling holes, welding, pop riveting and bashing at it with hammers. No one was allowed near the Woodie supply until it was done, which probably accounts for the rapid progress on this one occasion.
Loud crashing sounds from the corner signaled that “preparation” of the wood for the inaugural firing was taking place. In fact Bouncerwestie was laying into a pile of pallets with an axe, causing Builderwestie put his face in his hands and moan “those pallets cost me $30 each.”
The destruction of the pallets raised a cloud of incredibly noxious fumes so I retired outside and it wasn’t before long that the WBS was wheeled out in all its glory. It sure was impressive. It was huge. It did not look particularly aerodynamic.
“Bags I not be the one to tow that down the other side of the Brynderwin hills in a 35 knot nor-easter,” chuckled Siqnwriterwestie.
The wood was piled into the drum and the standard barbecue starter of explosive accelerant applied. Panelbeaterwestie then stood back with a firework, lit it and aimed it at the petrol soaked wood resulting in the obligatory woosh and flames.
Clouds of absolutely toxic fumes belched from the drum into the night sky.
“Whatever was in that drum before, it wasn’t organic,” someone remarked through lung-seared chokes.
Soon the fire was roaring, the smoke billowing and it was judged the right time to shut the lid of the 44 gallon drum to force the smoke into the dryer. This merely had the effect of extinguishing the blaze in about 2 minutes with no smoke actually making the transition into the dryer.
Heads were scratched. So were balls, in the inimitable westie way of deep thinking.
“More holes – we need more holes” was the call. The drills came out, and fortunately for we spectators, so did more accelerant. Having run out of fireworks, a newspaper dipped in the accelerant was employed to re-light the fire.
It’s like watching a train wreck, this sort of thing, and results were the predictable “whooomph” as belching flame dispatched several sets of westie eyebrows into the night air.
Despite the liberal application of the drill and a bit of 4x2 propping open the lid of the 44 gallon drum, the smoke refused to travel into the smoke chamber, so standing around and head scratching continued while the toxic fumes from the drum caused the world’s oceans to rise another few inches.
It was about that time the smell of rubber filled the air, particles gently simmering off the burning rubber of the trailer’s tyres. There was plenty of heat and smoke – it was just a matter of convincing it to go to the right places.
Panelbeaterwestie immediately flashed up the tin snips and pop riveter to fashion a couple of heat shields from a large piece of tin that, suspiciously, looked like it had been an advertising hoarding.
Thus ended the initial trial run (aka the burning off of toxic former inhabitants of our now-food grade device). The Woodies were dispatched as the head and ball scratching continued.
I am pleased to report that a few weeks later we had an afternoon smoke up with kingfish, snapper, kahawai and trevally. The WBS – now christened “Sharon” performed admirably.
The 44 gallon drum had been fitted with a barebecue hotplate and grill so sausages and steaks were also cooked while we waited for the fish. Excellent.
Why “Sharon” you may ask?
Well, the ability to fire up the barbecue hotplate and the smoker simultaneously means that the machine, like all good westie girls, now goes at both ends.
Or so my mates say.
This is the story of one of those occasions.
The creation of a great device that I came to call the Westiebeast Smoker.
A group of my mates had been toiling away on this device for some months in a builder’s factory out the back of Henderson. They wanted the ultimate fish smoker. It had to be big, it had to be mean, it had to be mounted on a trailer for some reason (portability was judged to be important).
They had been working on it for a long time; mostly because their “working bees” had generally turned into sessions to see if they could drink Auckland dry of “Woodies” a foul kind of premixed bourbon and coke.
We were invited to see the great unveiling and experience the first firing up of this machine but when we arrived it was clear that things had not progressed quite as far as they’d like.
At first I wondered if the WBS was a westie version of the Trojan horse that had been designed to park outside the North Shore nurses home, but a greater and more noble purpose was soon unveiled.
We were given a tour of the machine with an explanation into where each part had come from. It could have made a movie script “One night on the Blag.”
(Best line of the night “what if the cops ask us what we’re looking for?” “Mate we don’t even know what we’re looking for so we’ll be sweet.”)
The basis of the WBS was a trailer – donated in parts by a business contact of my Panelbeaterwestie mate. It just needed welding together. No problem for someone used to cutting and shutting written off V8s.
On top of the trailer they had mounted a huge commercial clothes dryer – the thing had to be 2.5m high and about 1 metre deep. The massive drum and heating works had been removed and replaced with enough shelves to hold most of New Zealand’s fishing quota for the next 5 years.
They’re still trying to work out how to make a 2m diameter stainless drum into the hell berley pot but fitting a hiab crane onto a 6m trailer boat to deploy the thing is proving tricky. It sits in the corner mocking them and driving them crazy during their Thursday night “strategising sessions.”
The smoke production unit on the WBS was a 44 gallon drum mounted on its side and cut horizontally with a duct into the dryer air intake. There was enough room on the other side of the trailer to build a bin for storing wood.
But as we wandered around in awe of this achievement, the westies were all over the thing, hammering, drilling holes, welding, pop riveting and bashing at it with hammers. No one was allowed near the Woodie supply until it was done, which probably accounts for the rapid progress on this one occasion.
Loud crashing sounds from the corner signaled that “preparation” of the wood for the inaugural firing was taking place. In fact Bouncerwestie was laying into a pile of pallets with an axe, causing Builderwestie put his face in his hands and moan “those pallets cost me $30 each.”
The destruction of the pallets raised a cloud of incredibly noxious fumes so I retired outside and it wasn’t before long that the WBS was wheeled out in all its glory. It sure was impressive. It was huge. It did not look particularly aerodynamic.
“Bags I not be the one to tow that down the other side of the Brynderwin hills in a 35 knot nor-easter,” chuckled Siqnwriterwestie.
The wood was piled into the drum and the standard barbecue starter of explosive accelerant applied. Panelbeaterwestie then stood back with a firework, lit it and aimed it at the petrol soaked wood resulting in the obligatory woosh and flames.
Clouds of absolutely toxic fumes belched from the drum into the night sky.
“Whatever was in that drum before, it wasn’t organic,” someone remarked through lung-seared chokes.
Soon the fire was roaring, the smoke billowing and it was judged the right time to shut the lid of the 44 gallon drum to force the smoke into the dryer. This merely had the effect of extinguishing the blaze in about 2 minutes with no smoke actually making the transition into the dryer.
Heads were scratched. So were balls, in the inimitable westie way of deep thinking.
“More holes – we need more holes” was the call. The drills came out, and fortunately for we spectators, so did more accelerant. Having run out of fireworks, a newspaper dipped in the accelerant was employed to re-light the fire.
It’s like watching a train wreck, this sort of thing, and results were the predictable “whooomph” as belching flame dispatched several sets of westie eyebrows into the night air.
Despite the liberal application of the drill and a bit of 4x2 propping open the lid of the 44 gallon drum, the smoke refused to travel into the smoke chamber, so standing around and head scratching continued while the toxic fumes from the drum caused the world’s oceans to rise another few inches.
It was about that time the smell of rubber filled the air, particles gently simmering off the burning rubber of the trailer’s tyres. There was plenty of heat and smoke – it was just a matter of convincing it to go to the right places.
Panelbeaterwestie immediately flashed up the tin snips and pop riveter to fashion a couple of heat shields from a large piece of tin that, suspiciously, looked like it had been an advertising hoarding.
Thus ended the initial trial run (aka the burning off of toxic former inhabitants of our now-food grade device). The Woodies were dispatched as the head and ball scratching continued.
I am pleased to report that a few weeks later we had an afternoon smoke up with kingfish, snapper, kahawai and trevally. The WBS – now christened “Sharon” performed admirably.
The 44 gallon drum had been fitted with a barebecue hotplate and grill so sausages and steaks were also cooked while we waited for the fish. Excellent.
Why “Sharon” you may ask?
Well, the ability to fire up the barbecue hotplate and the smoker simultaneously means that the machine, like all good westie girls, now goes at both ends.
Or so my mates say.
Monday, March 24, 2008
IT IS HARD WORK. NO REALLY, IT IS…..
To the readers of boating magazines, the life of the marine journalist looks a bit like one long holiday. It’s true that you get paid to write about boating and that as a lifestyle, it ain’t bad.
But after a few years the dedicated marine journo starts to collect a few interesting “lessons” and will experience less than ideal situations. I thought that this month might be an opportunity to look at a just a few of the speed bumps and chicanes I’ve encountered in a career of 20 years writing about other people’s boats.
There are moments where you just want to crack up but find yourself stifling the laughs under great pressure. One of the most memorable of these was doing a boat test with the late Denis Ganley, well known designer of steel yachts, and the owner of one of his new designs. They were dropping me off on one of the harbour buoys (Rough Rock, in fact) which in those days were a catamaran arrangement of floats with a wooden platform on top – they were loved by us boating journos for taking photos of test boats.
Denis decided we would sail alongside, ease the genoa sheets and slow down enough for me to step onto the platform – but things went awry when the sheets snagged in the two triangles atop the mark, sheeted in the genoa and the powered up yacht boat took off with Rough Rock Buoy in tow. Until the buoy’s anchor chain took up and the buoy and boat became one in a huge clanging graunch, putting a huge dent in the boat’s side and scouring the paint down to the metal.
The rest of that boat test was like going out to dinner with a couple after a huge fight - the owner just looked one way, scowling, Denis looked the other way, scowling and neither talked to each other.
Dear Readers it takes me all my courage to admit to the next story. Southampton Boat Show, circa 1980. Following severe over indulgence at the Guinness Stand (they always had a much-frequented Guinness stand at the pommy boat shows) we had to stay overnight in the city. The only room we could get was in a hotel with a double bed. For some reason I thought sharing a double bed with another journalist from a well known boating publication would be OK – until I woke in the middle of the night and the bugger had shuffled across the bed and was cuddling me, murmuring his wife’s name.
If anyone wants to know the name of a hotel with exceedingly comfortable wooden floors, give me a shout – I know of at least one in Southampton.
Fate got him back though when he took a boat test across the North Sea and the diesel engine started sucking oil from its sump through the turbo inlet – and ran away. He had to fight his way into the engine room in wild seas with an ungoverned diesel roaring and using up its vital lubrication, then stuff a rag into the turbo intake, all the while praying the thing didn’t grenade while he was sandwiched alongside.
He made it but I’m sure to this day it was Our Maker’s way of dissuading him from further homosexual activities, however accidental they might be.
Boat shows are always hard work, particularly because there is always a friend or acquaintance from shows past to have a beer or rum with. If fact at last year’s, I went straight to the bar, then went home some hours later and didn’t actually see any of the show. I suppose I should be ashamed of myself, but the one thing you develop in this line of work is a thick hide (and an over-developed taste for the turps).
The former Editor of this publication has possibly the best Boat Show strategy I’ve ever known. It goes something like this: Get pissed and stay pissed. Then hit up everyone you meet for advertising. It seemed to work.
One year a staff member arrived at the Auckland show with a bottle of petrol which we proceeded to polish off with Coke, out the back of the stand. It wasn’t really petrol, it just looked, smelled and tasted like it. We drank it anyway. And, if I ever drank petrol I am sure it would have a similar effect.
We were totaled. It was the night I discovered that a dial a driver from Epsom to Browns Bay costs the thick end of $80. One of the reps tried to drive and managed to hit three things just trying to get the car moving. Keys removed.
For our sins the bloody boss never again allowed us to have a little private area out the back of the stand. It was the first and only time this experiment was tried. From then on everything had to be public – clearly we were not responsible enough to be left alone.
Then there was the stained spinnaker boat test episode.
A lovely couple showing off their new cruising yacht on a beaut day. We swung downwind and the husband decided the spinnaker should be deployed, so his wife and I enjoyed sailing along in the cockpit while he set the kite.
He hauled on the halyard and the kite went skywards and filled – until a pair of knickers fell out and into the water, also revealing a nasty stain in the kite. It is truly fortunate that this sight was hidden from the wife’s view by the mainsail and the fresh air soon dried out the stain.
The husband knew who the culprit was – a mate of his who always thought the sail bags was the best place on a boat for some lovin’ - to this day I’m sure the rest of that cruise would have been far worse than the day Denis clouted the Rough Rock buoy.
But after a few years the dedicated marine journo starts to collect a few interesting “lessons” and will experience less than ideal situations. I thought that this month might be an opportunity to look at a just a few of the speed bumps and chicanes I’ve encountered in a career of 20 years writing about other people’s boats.
There are moments where you just want to crack up but find yourself stifling the laughs under great pressure. One of the most memorable of these was doing a boat test with the late Denis Ganley, well known designer of steel yachts, and the owner of one of his new designs. They were dropping me off on one of the harbour buoys (Rough Rock, in fact) which in those days were a catamaran arrangement of floats with a wooden platform on top – they were loved by us boating journos for taking photos of test boats.
Denis decided we would sail alongside, ease the genoa sheets and slow down enough for me to step onto the platform – but things went awry when the sheets snagged in the two triangles atop the mark, sheeted in the genoa and the powered up yacht boat took off with Rough Rock Buoy in tow. Until the buoy’s anchor chain took up and the buoy and boat became one in a huge clanging graunch, putting a huge dent in the boat’s side and scouring the paint down to the metal.
The rest of that boat test was like going out to dinner with a couple after a huge fight - the owner just looked one way, scowling, Denis looked the other way, scowling and neither talked to each other.
Dear Readers it takes me all my courage to admit to the next story. Southampton Boat Show, circa 1980. Following severe over indulgence at the Guinness Stand (they always had a much-frequented Guinness stand at the pommy boat shows) we had to stay overnight in the city. The only room we could get was in a hotel with a double bed. For some reason I thought sharing a double bed with another journalist from a well known boating publication would be OK – until I woke in the middle of the night and the bugger had shuffled across the bed and was cuddling me, murmuring his wife’s name.
If anyone wants to know the name of a hotel with exceedingly comfortable wooden floors, give me a shout – I know of at least one in Southampton.
Fate got him back though when he took a boat test across the North Sea and the diesel engine started sucking oil from its sump through the turbo inlet – and ran away. He had to fight his way into the engine room in wild seas with an ungoverned diesel roaring and using up its vital lubrication, then stuff a rag into the turbo intake, all the while praying the thing didn’t grenade while he was sandwiched alongside.
He made it but I’m sure to this day it was Our Maker’s way of dissuading him from further homosexual activities, however accidental they might be.
Boat shows are always hard work, particularly because there is always a friend or acquaintance from shows past to have a beer or rum with. If fact at last year’s, I went straight to the bar, then went home some hours later and didn’t actually see any of the show. I suppose I should be ashamed of myself, but the one thing you develop in this line of work is a thick hide (and an over-developed taste for the turps).
The former Editor of this publication has possibly the best Boat Show strategy I’ve ever known. It goes something like this: Get pissed and stay pissed. Then hit up everyone you meet for advertising. It seemed to work.
One year a staff member arrived at the Auckland show with a bottle of petrol which we proceeded to polish off with Coke, out the back of the stand. It wasn’t really petrol, it just looked, smelled and tasted like it. We drank it anyway. And, if I ever drank petrol I am sure it would have a similar effect.
We were totaled. It was the night I discovered that a dial a driver from Epsom to Browns Bay costs the thick end of $80. One of the reps tried to drive and managed to hit three things just trying to get the car moving. Keys removed.
For our sins the bloody boss never again allowed us to have a little private area out the back of the stand. It was the first and only time this experiment was tried. From then on everything had to be public – clearly we were not responsible enough to be left alone.
Then there was the stained spinnaker boat test episode.
A lovely couple showing off their new cruising yacht on a beaut day. We swung downwind and the husband decided the spinnaker should be deployed, so his wife and I enjoyed sailing along in the cockpit while he set the kite.
He hauled on the halyard and the kite went skywards and filled – until a pair of knickers fell out and into the water, also revealing a nasty stain in the kite. It is truly fortunate that this sight was hidden from the wife’s view by the mainsail and the fresh air soon dried out the stain.
The husband knew who the culprit was – a mate of his who always thought the sail bags was the best place on a boat for some lovin’ - to this day I’m sure the rest of that cruise would have been far worse than the day Denis clouted the Rough Rock buoy.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
SPLASHING AFTER JACQUES
I blame the French.
Or rather, one in particular. It was Jacques Cousteau and his magical underwater TV programme that inspired me to get kitted up in thick rubber, buy a speargun and tell my school that I wanted to become the next great marine biologist. Or something else to do with being underwater.
I’ve never quite worked out why the teachers at Westlake Boys High School laughed at the notion, particularly as they had never even seen me in a wetsuit. They made me take chemistry instead, and I was as good at that as maths (Translation: Not good at all).
I didn’t even have a wetsuit when I first started snorkeling. My brother conned me into believing that a thin nylon jacket worked just as well and he even generously agreed to sell me one for a small fortune.
I froze my butt off during winter dives until I could afford the real thing … by the time I worked out that I had been royally conned he was enjoying the warmer climates of London, the SOB. Yes he is also the one who used to think it funny to stash all his dirty socks inside my pillow slip.
My first experience of snorkeling was at Scandretts beach, where we used to stay with friends of my parents. I was smitten from the first time I went into the water with a mask and snorkel – what an amazing experience. The water on that occasion was murky and muddy, and for some notion I decided I wanted to spear an octopus.
My surprise at seeing one through the murk was tempered only with disappointment as I stabbed at the thing with a Hawaiian sling spear and missed. It was only when we got out of the water I noticed that our host, a burly and genial Scot by the name of Bill, was wearing orange flippers.
To this day I have my suspicions about whether octopus can change their colour to bright orange and I suspect Bill is lucky to still have both feet.
The speargun I bought was the only thing my mum ever let me take money out of the bank account for – and a horrible old heavy clanking and totally inaccurate thing it was too. Apart from an octopus and a red moki that may already have been dead I don’t think I ever killed anything with it. Except for my hands. The rubber bands would always come unhooked from the spear and the metal clips would take a decent hunk of skin out of my hands as they flew past.
I wasn’t that keen on eating red moki either – someone told me that you have to keep the slime off the flesh but the taste certainly didn’t inspire me to spend long periods under the water holding my breath. The red moki stayed safe, despite there being plenty around.
There is a thing about spearfishing – looking upwards when you are at the end of your breath and the crystalline surface is a long, long way up. It’s an interesting experience.
I eventually got my octopus. It was at Goat Island (in the days before it became a marine reserve). I had been invited by a friend of mine to camp up there. As a challenge to our spearfishing skills we weren’t allowed to take any food – we could only eat what we caught. In hindsight, we were always going to starve.
And freshly caught octopus – which is the only thing we managed to kill – is about as appetizing as a gumboot that’s been in continuous service around the farmyard for many years.
I’m told that to prepare the Octopus, you boil it in a billy with a rock in the water. When the rock is soft, discard the octopus and eat the rock. I believe it
In fact that trip was memorable for more than one reason. I came home in the back of my mates Mark 2 Consul (a two door car) with his girlfriend sitting in the front with a five gallon can of petrol held firmly between her knees. The cap was not that well secured and petrol was sloshing around the top of the can. Remember, the bit about no rear doors next to where I was sitting? The raw fuel sloshing around the lid was bad enough but when she reached for her cigarettes, I found myself on the side of the road hitch hiking before my ass got fried.
Our efforts at securing a feed took on a more positive note when my mate Peter bought a rubber duck. At least we could go further than walking distance.
It had an oil spewing, noisy and cantankerous old Carniti or Crescent outboard and wooden floorboards that you fixed in place when inflated. Or tried to fix in place. The fittings were old and worn, so this thing flexed over every wave and was guaranteed to make the inhabitants seasick. We’d relieve the boredom by falling backwards into the briney at high speed. It used to take a long time to get anywhere in that thing but it sure was fun and I’m still amazing none of us lost an arm as the outboard clattered past. The folly of youth.
Spearfishing was also my introduction to drinking hard liquor, after a work colleague showed me the delights of a few slugs of Kirsch after every dive. The stuff is absolutely lethal. The only problem was that Brent tended to extol the virtues of his sex life after a couple of swigs and hearing him tell his many stories it’s a wonder that at least half the females in the North Island weren’t knocked up and giving birth to pissed little blonde babies wearing flippers.
Spirits Bay, that mythical place at the top of the North Island, beckoned one Easter, so armed with a tarp to use as a tent - and very little else – we headed off. It was a rich time and we were actually quite successful with gathering plenty of paua for eating.
The expedition leader mentioned a dive around the point, so fully kitted up in our wetsuits and full weight belts, we hit the track. He failed to mention that his plan involved a full walk up over the hill in scorching hot conditions.
I’m not sure whether any Maori spirits were departing that day but they must have thought the King of Tonga had died young and what he was doing wearing several radial ply tyres as he walked over the hill to jump off towards the promised land.
When we finally got into the water, steaming and sweating, it was like someone had filled the wetsuit with ice cubes! This was made tolerable by finding an underwater cave chocka with huge paua. Immediately I swam in and gently prized half a dozen off the cave wall. It was about this time I learned that flippers don’t come with a reverse gear.
So imagine if you will a hippo wedged head first in a 44 gallon drum of water, with no reverse gear, as his air runs out and you will have a vivid picture of that occasion I remember so well. The fact that I am here to tell the tale proves I survived, but since then I’ve been far less likely to swim blindly into small caves, no matter how much food is inside them.
And I’m still likely to throw the snorkel, mask and flippers into the boat when we’re off for family picnics. It’s some of the most fun you can have with your clothes on. I never did get the attraction of scuba with all its gear and the amount of time it takes fiddling with the gear compared with short time under the water.
To me snorkeling is a pure form of pleasure, simple and enjoyable. And through all these adventures - at least I learned how not to stab at coloured objects, swim into caves, set fire to myself or trust my brothers
Or rather, one in particular. It was Jacques Cousteau and his magical underwater TV programme that inspired me to get kitted up in thick rubber, buy a speargun and tell my school that I wanted to become the next great marine biologist. Or something else to do with being underwater.
I’ve never quite worked out why the teachers at Westlake Boys High School laughed at the notion, particularly as they had never even seen me in a wetsuit. They made me take chemistry instead, and I was as good at that as maths (Translation: Not good at all).
I didn’t even have a wetsuit when I first started snorkeling. My brother conned me into believing that a thin nylon jacket worked just as well and he even generously agreed to sell me one for a small fortune.
I froze my butt off during winter dives until I could afford the real thing … by the time I worked out that I had been royally conned he was enjoying the warmer climates of London, the SOB. Yes he is also the one who used to think it funny to stash all his dirty socks inside my pillow slip.
My first experience of snorkeling was at Scandretts beach, where we used to stay with friends of my parents. I was smitten from the first time I went into the water with a mask and snorkel – what an amazing experience. The water on that occasion was murky and muddy, and for some notion I decided I wanted to spear an octopus.
My surprise at seeing one through the murk was tempered only with disappointment as I stabbed at the thing with a Hawaiian sling spear and missed. It was only when we got out of the water I noticed that our host, a burly and genial Scot by the name of Bill, was wearing orange flippers.
To this day I have my suspicions about whether octopus can change their colour to bright orange and I suspect Bill is lucky to still have both feet.
The speargun I bought was the only thing my mum ever let me take money out of the bank account for – and a horrible old heavy clanking and totally inaccurate thing it was too. Apart from an octopus and a red moki that may already have been dead I don’t think I ever killed anything with it. Except for my hands. The rubber bands would always come unhooked from the spear and the metal clips would take a decent hunk of skin out of my hands as they flew past.
I wasn’t that keen on eating red moki either – someone told me that you have to keep the slime off the flesh but the taste certainly didn’t inspire me to spend long periods under the water holding my breath. The red moki stayed safe, despite there being plenty around.
There is a thing about spearfishing – looking upwards when you are at the end of your breath and the crystalline surface is a long, long way up. It’s an interesting experience.
I eventually got my octopus. It was at Goat Island (in the days before it became a marine reserve). I had been invited by a friend of mine to camp up there. As a challenge to our spearfishing skills we weren’t allowed to take any food – we could only eat what we caught. In hindsight, we were always going to starve.
And freshly caught octopus – which is the only thing we managed to kill – is about as appetizing as a gumboot that’s been in continuous service around the farmyard for many years.
I’m told that to prepare the Octopus, you boil it in a billy with a rock in the water. When the rock is soft, discard the octopus and eat the rock. I believe it
In fact that trip was memorable for more than one reason. I came home in the back of my mates Mark 2 Consul (a two door car) with his girlfriend sitting in the front with a five gallon can of petrol held firmly between her knees. The cap was not that well secured and petrol was sloshing around the top of the can. Remember, the bit about no rear doors next to where I was sitting? The raw fuel sloshing around the lid was bad enough but when she reached for her cigarettes, I found myself on the side of the road hitch hiking before my ass got fried.
Our efforts at securing a feed took on a more positive note when my mate Peter bought a rubber duck. At least we could go further than walking distance.
It had an oil spewing, noisy and cantankerous old Carniti or Crescent outboard and wooden floorboards that you fixed in place when inflated. Or tried to fix in place. The fittings were old and worn, so this thing flexed over every wave and was guaranteed to make the inhabitants seasick. We’d relieve the boredom by falling backwards into the briney at high speed. It used to take a long time to get anywhere in that thing but it sure was fun and I’m still amazing none of us lost an arm as the outboard clattered past. The folly of youth.
Spearfishing was also my introduction to drinking hard liquor, after a work colleague showed me the delights of a few slugs of Kirsch after every dive. The stuff is absolutely lethal. The only problem was that Brent tended to extol the virtues of his sex life after a couple of swigs and hearing him tell his many stories it’s a wonder that at least half the females in the North Island weren’t knocked up and giving birth to pissed little blonde babies wearing flippers.
Spirits Bay, that mythical place at the top of the North Island, beckoned one Easter, so armed with a tarp to use as a tent - and very little else – we headed off. It was a rich time and we were actually quite successful with gathering plenty of paua for eating.
The expedition leader mentioned a dive around the point, so fully kitted up in our wetsuits and full weight belts, we hit the track. He failed to mention that his plan involved a full walk up over the hill in scorching hot conditions.
I’m not sure whether any Maori spirits were departing that day but they must have thought the King of Tonga had died young and what he was doing wearing several radial ply tyres as he walked over the hill to jump off towards the promised land.
When we finally got into the water, steaming and sweating, it was like someone had filled the wetsuit with ice cubes! This was made tolerable by finding an underwater cave chocka with huge paua. Immediately I swam in and gently prized half a dozen off the cave wall. It was about this time I learned that flippers don’t come with a reverse gear.
So imagine if you will a hippo wedged head first in a 44 gallon drum of water, with no reverse gear, as his air runs out and you will have a vivid picture of that occasion I remember so well. The fact that I am here to tell the tale proves I survived, but since then I’ve been far less likely to swim blindly into small caves, no matter how much food is inside them.
And I’m still likely to throw the snorkel, mask and flippers into the boat when we’re off for family picnics. It’s some of the most fun you can have with your clothes on. I never did get the attraction of scuba with all its gear and the amount of time it takes fiddling with the gear compared with short time under the water.
To me snorkeling is a pure form of pleasure, simple and enjoyable. And through all these adventures - at least I learned how not to stab at coloured objects, swim into caves, set fire to myself or trust my brothers
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Spousal Disinformation
“My only worry when I die is that my wife will sell my fishing tackle for what I told her I paid for it.”
That saying is supposed to be a joke, but you’d be surprised at the number of blokes who get a chilly shiver down their spine when they hear it.
I’m one of them. I’ve been forced into this state of spousal disinformation by the insistence of SWMBO that for every dollar I spend on fishing gear, she gets to spend the equivalent on useless girly stuff like shoes and handbags and coffee with the girls.
She’s not an easy one to fool, my wife. I once tried to disguise a mission to buy a boat as a shopping trip to buy my son a birthday present.
With the deal done I went home, leaving the boat at the dealers for a few items to be tidied up.
The instant I walked in, she said “you’ve bought a bloody boat haven’t you.”
(Howinthehell did she know that? I’ve still never worked it out.)
Imagine cheating on this woman – by the time you got home from your lover’s tryst she’d be standing at the front gate with your favourite filleting knife and a pair of testicle clamps at the ready.
There are always ways of disguising fishing tackle purchases, of course and some of them have even been known to work.
Pretending that the gear has been borrowed from a mate is an excellent excuse, although this introduces a level of uncertainty to the equation. As in “when does Kerren want that rod thingy back, won’t he want to use it?” This sort of question is designed to severely test your abilities in the area of spousal disinformation.
Take for example, my mate who arrived home with a spanking new Shimano T-curve Bent Butt game rod, a steal at something over $300. The unfortunate thing about all this is that he chose to do so on his wife’s birthday. The same birthday that he had forgotten to buy her a present.
He managed a partial recovery by using the old “This? It’s borrowed from a mate” story but it still wasn‘t enough to prevent a lengthy stay in hospital.
That excuse one has worked for me as recently as three weeks ago when SWMBO sprang me with a new soft plastics reel.
Another mate has enough gamefishing lures to fill several rooms of his house. He is what’s known as a hopelessly addicted “tackle ho.” Every new lure or new skirt combination he sees, he must have (even though he can only run 5 or 6 behind his boat at a time).
He was doing OK until one day he accidentally left a price tag on one of the lures.
Guess who said “these things don’t cost you twenty bucks each do they, you conniving old bastard?”
He is expected to make a full recovery in time for game season, however his credit card is still on life support following three weeks holiday for his dearly beloved in Venice.
One of the best ways, if you can manage it, is to sneak the gear onto the boat and get it messy before she sees it.
Women may be able to spot the difference between a pair of Jimmy Choo or Prada shoes at 1000 yards, but they have no idea of the difference between a Penn Slammer eggbeater or an 80 wide game reel. We can use this in our favour – get some old bait smeared onto it and you can claim “this old thing, sheesh, had it for years.”
When I decided to get into gamefishing, I knew there would be a substantial investment needed in equipment. Over the winter period I slowly ticked off the items on the must-have gear list, carefully hiding each item in the office stationery cupboard at work.
It just meant that the staff had to be extra careful when getting the paper clips, lest they be crowned by a razor sharp marlin gaff made of three-quarter inch thick stainless, about 6 ft long. Fortunately there was no need to involve the OSH people.
The opportunity to repatriate all the gear to home came when SWMBO left for a month in Canada and I wasn’t in any way put off by her departing comment, as she looked towards the rod rack in the garage that “there had better not be any more rods in there when I get back.”
There weren’t. They were still stashed up the back of the garage under some old sacks when she got home, but soon enough I had to spool them up – which I did using a full gamefishing gimbal belt to hold the rod and reel. When her fun-radar alerted her to the fact that something was up and she walked into the garage while I cranked the nylon onto the sparkling new gold Penn International, I knew I was screwed.
“What’s that?”
What’s what?”
“That big-ass golden reel.”
“What big-ass golden reel?”
Her eyes narrowed as she prepared to strike ... she tried to visualize what that gold might look like melted down into rings and topped with large diamonds.
“You’re a cheeky chap,” she said, spinning on her heel and heading straight for the credit card. It was always going to get messy, that one.
So yes, if anything untoward does happen to me, will someone please sit my wife down and tell her:-
I really do have five game rods, not three. They are all mine.
The recently acquired Penn Torque 300 reel is not a prototype sales sample that they’re not allowed to sell. It’s the real thing.
The sweet little Daiwa Black Widow II soft plastic overhead reel in the top drawer of the filing cabinet is not borrowed from Graeme.
In the front of the boat is a huge tackle box chocka with Gulp, Sluggo and Catch soft plastic baits. If you turn it over there are dozen new blade jigs. These were not bought at the warehouse for $5 each, most came from WS Lauries and were three times that price, at least.
There is another whole bag of gamefishing lures under the satchel in the garage storage cupboard, and no, they don’t cost twenty bucks each. The reason I bought that new storage bag at the boat show was to fit more new ones in, not because the zip broke on the old bag.
And don’t any of you send her this article.
That saying is supposed to be a joke, but you’d be surprised at the number of blokes who get a chilly shiver down their spine when they hear it.
I’m one of them. I’ve been forced into this state of spousal disinformation by the insistence of SWMBO that for every dollar I spend on fishing gear, she gets to spend the equivalent on useless girly stuff like shoes and handbags and coffee with the girls.
She’s not an easy one to fool, my wife. I once tried to disguise a mission to buy a boat as a shopping trip to buy my son a birthday present.
With the deal done I went home, leaving the boat at the dealers for a few items to be tidied up.
The instant I walked in, she said “you’ve bought a bloody boat haven’t you.”
(Howinthehell did she know that? I’ve still never worked it out.)
Imagine cheating on this woman – by the time you got home from your lover’s tryst she’d be standing at the front gate with your favourite filleting knife and a pair of testicle clamps at the ready.
There are always ways of disguising fishing tackle purchases, of course and some of them have even been known to work.
Pretending that the gear has been borrowed from a mate is an excellent excuse, although this introduces a level of uncertainty to the equation. As in “when does Kerren want that rod thingy back, won’t he want to use it?” This sort of question is designed to severely test your abilities in the area of spousal disinformation.
Take for example, my mate who arrived home with a spanking new Shimano T-curve Bent Butt game rod, a steal at something over $300. The unfortunate thing about all this is that he chose to do so on his wife’s birthday. The same birthday that he had forgotten to buy her a present.
He managed a partial recovery by using the old “This? It’s borrowed from a mate” story but it still wasn‘t enough to prevent a lengthy stay in hospital.
That excuse one has worked for me as recently as three weeks ago when SWMBO sprang me with a new soft plastics reel.
Another mate has enough gamefishing lures to fill several rooms of his house. He is what’s known as a hopelessly addicted “tackle ho.” Every new lure or new skirt combination he sees, he must have (even though he can only run 5 or 6 behind his boat at a time).
He was doing OK until one day he accidentally left a price tag on one of the lures.
Guess who said “these things don’t cost you twenty bucks each do they, you conniving old bastard?”
He is expected to make a full recovery in time for game season, however his credit card is still on life support following three weeks holiday for his dearly beloved in Venice.
One of the best ways, if you can manage it, is to sneak the gear onto the boat and get it messy before she sees it.
Women may be able to spot the difference between a pair of Jimmy Choo or Prada shoes at 1000 yards, but they have no idea of the difference between a Penn Slammer eggbeater or an 80 wide game reel. We can use this in our favour – get some old bait smeared onto it and you can claim “this old thing, sheesh, had it for years.”
When I decided to get into gamefishing, I knew there would be a substantial investment needed in equipment. Over the winter period I slowly ticked off the items on the must-have gear list, carefully hiding each item in the office stationery cupboard at work.
It just meant that the staff had to be extra careful when getting the paper clips, lest they be crowned by a razor sharp marlin gaff made of three-quarter inch thick stainless, about 6 ft long. Fortunately there was no need to involve the OSH people.
The opportunity to repatriate all the gear to home came when SWMBO left for a month in Canada and I wasn’t in any way put off by her departing comment, as she looked towards the rod rack in the garage that “there had better not be any more rods in there when I get back.”
There weren’t. They were still stashed up the back of the garage under some old sacks when she got home, but soon enough I had to spool them up – which I did using a full gamefishing gimbal belt to hold the rod and reel. When her fun-radar alerted her to the fact that something was up and she walked into the garage while I cranked the nylon onto the sparkling new gold Penn International, I knew I was screwed.
“What’s that?”
What’s what?”
“That big-ass golden reel.”
“What big-ass golden reel?”
Her eyes narrowed as she prepared to strike ... she tried to visualize what that gold might look like melted down into rings and topped with large diamonds.
“You’re a cheeky chap,” she said, spinning on her heel and heading straight for the credit card. It was always going to get messy, that one.
So yes, if anything untoward does happen to me, will someone please sit my wife down and tell her:-
I really do have five game rods, not three. They are all mine.
The recently acquired Penn Torque 300 reel is not a prototype sales sample that they’re not allowed to sell. It’s the real thing.
The sweet little Daiwa Black Widow II soft plastic overhead reel in the top drawer of the filing cabinet is not borrowed from Graeme.
In the front of the boat is a huge tackle box chocka with Gulp, Sluggo and Catch soft plastic baits. If you turn it over there are dozen new blade jigs. These were not bought at the warehouse for $5 each, most came from WS Lauries and were three times that price, at least.
There is another whole bag of gamefishing lures under the satchel in the garage storage cupboard, and no, they don’t cost twenty bucks each. The reason I bought that new storage bag at the boat show was to fit more new ones in, not because the zip broke on the old bag.
And don’t any of you send her this article.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Musings on Bloody Watersports
The first hint that I was not cut out to be the world’s greatest watersports person came at an early age. As I crashed to the ground trying to use a surf skimmer, twisting my knee, almost inserting my right foot up my own fundamental orifice and making a complete dick of myself.
Come to think of it, that first time was an omen. That last behavioural trait has been sustained over more than 50 years now.
Surf skimmers were round pieces of plywood that you shoved with your foot along the very thin water created when waves washed up the beach. Good riders could get hours of fun, excitement and exhilarating rides out of the things.
I was not one of them.
Unfortunately it seems I did not learn there. It took me many years of collisions with various pieces of water and other nautical substances before finding sailing. At least with sailing you were going slow when you hit things and that suited me just fine for a long time.
Water skiing. Yes, I tried it a couple of times. The first I seemed to spend an awful lot of time emulating superman as the boat took off and I flew into a mega-face plant at the end of the rope, getting a serious blast of salt water up the nostrils.
One day I got the hang of it and zoomed around the bay in what we would have called (in those simpler times) “gay abandon.” You’d use different words these days, I suspect. It soon ended in tears when, coming into the beach I squatted, me “speedos” parted and I received the biggest enema yet recorded by a human being.
My tears were very salty and I swear water was still dribbling out of my ears a week later.
I found similar success with the sport of windsurfing – with the emphasis on the ”suc” part of that word. Surely after two whole weeks of going head first over the side, then head first over the other side, it qualified as a “give it away you useless twat, you’re never going to be Barbara Kendall.”
At the end of two weeks I could get the thing to generically move in one direction but had not mastered other key aspects of sailboard sailing, namely: steering, turning, tacking, going upwind and exhibiting any form of basic control/.
The holiday ended and thus the sun came down on my not so illustrious windsurfing career.
Offshore powerboat racing is another high speed water sport that is best avoided. Spectacular to watch, but insane to partake of. I worked that out about 5 minutes into my first experience of it.
I had been invited by NZ champion Graeme Horne to have a ride in his original EIT Mover – a little Cougar cat. We flew up the harbour on a calm day. It was amazing. It was exhilarating. It felt bloody fast. All good so far.
Then we turned round just off Orakei wharf. If I recall, he trimmed the nose hard down and wrenched the wheel. The G-forces were so powerful I swear that my eyes came out of my head and looked back at me from the end of stretched retinal nerves. At least, that’s how it felt.
My arse was puckering so hard it took several large bites out of the foam seat squab.
And that was on a relatively short run in a small boat that was, by today’s standards, pretty tame. When I look at the Placemakers and Sleepyheads of today, I just shake my head in wonder. At the very least they’d need seat cushions made of bullet proof Kevlar.
I was fortunate that I never managed to achieve the heights of injury of my oldest brother.
The father of a mate of his had built a truly spectacular racing powerboat with a massive V8 – I seem to recall that the engine came from a McLaren Formula 5000 race car.
It was only a matter of time before the teenage hoons got their hands on this piece of kit for some “recreation.” They decided that a hundred mile an hour powerboat, with about a gazillion horsepower, would be just the berries for waterskiing behind.
It all ended in tears when my brother decided he needed to swing stylishly close to the beach just next to where those bikini-wearing girls were sitting. He immediately found himself short of water and took to running in 30ft strides up the beach.
As he says “I was doing quite well for the first couple of steps but the third and fourth were very problematic. I ended up doing a massive face-plant and breaking three toes and a collarbone.”
But, knowing my jammy burglar of a brother, he probably managed to translate his adversity into a sympathy shag. He’s good like that.
Come to think of it, that first time was an omen. That last behavioural trait has been sustained over more than 50 years now.
Surf skimmers were round pieces of plywood that you shoved with your foot along the very thin water created when waves washed up the beach. Good riders could get hours of fun, excitement and exhilarating rides out of the things.
I was not one of them.
Unfortunately it seems I did not learn there. It took me many years of collisions with various pieces of water and other nautical substances before finding sailing. At least with sailing you were going slow when you hit things and that suited me just fine for a long time.
Water skiing. Yes, I tried it a couple of times. The first I seemed to spend an awful lot of time emulating superman as the boat took off and I flew into a mega-face plant at the end of the rope, getting a serious blast of salt water up the nostrils.
One day I got the hang of it and zoomed around the bay in what we would have called (in those simpler times) “gay abandon.” You’d use different words these days, I suspect. It soon ended in tears when, coming into the beach I squatted, me “speedos” parted and I received the biggest enema yet recorded by a human being.
My tears were very salty and I swear water was still dribbling out of my ears a week later.
I found similar success with the sport of windsurfing – with the emphasis on the ”suc” part of that word. Surely after two whole weeks of going head first over the side, then head first over the other side, it qualified as a “give it away you useless twat, you’re never going to be Barbara Kendall.”
At the end of two weeks I could get the thing to generically move in one direction but had not mastered other key aspects of sailboard sailing, namely: steering, turning, tacking, going upwind and exhibiting any form of basic control/.
The holiday ended and thus the sun came down on my not so illustrious windsurfing career.
Offshore powerboat racing is another high speed water sport that is best avoided. Spectacular to watch, but insane to partake of. I worked that out about 5 minutes into my first experience of it.
I had been invited by NZ champion Graeme Horne to have a ride in his original EIT Mover – a little Cougar cat. We flew up the harbour on a calm day. It was amazing. It was exhilarating. It felt bloody fast. All good so far.
Then we turned round just off Orakei wharf. If I recall, he trimmed the nose hard down and wrenched the wheel. The G-forces were so powerful I swear that my eyes came out of my head and looked back at me from the end of stretched retinal nerves. At least, that’s how it felt.
My arse was puckering so hard it took several large bites out of the foam seat squab.
And that was on a relatively short run in a small boat that was, by today’s standards, pretty tame. When I look at the Placemakers and Sleepyheads of today, I just shake my head in wonder. At the very least they’d need seat cushions made of bullet proof Kevlar.
I was fortunate that I never managed to achieve the heights of injury of my oldest brother.
The father of a mate of his had built a truly spectacular racing powerboat with a massive V8 – I seem to recall that the engine came from a McLaren Formula 5000 race car.
It was only a matter of time before the teenage hoons got their hands on this piece of kit for some “recreation.” They decided that a hundred mile an hour powerboat, with about a gazillion horsepower, would be just the berries for waterskiing behind.
It all ended in tears when my brother decided he needed to swing stylishly close to the beach just next to where those bikini-wearing girls were sitting. He immediately found himself short of water and took to running in 30ft strides up the beach.
As he says “I was doing quite well for the first couple of steps but the third and fourth were very problematic. I ended up doing a massive face-plant and breaking three toes and a collarbone.”
But, knowing my jammy burglar of a brother, he probably managed to translate his adversity into a sympathy shag. He’s good like that.
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