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.
