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.
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