Wednesday, April 02, 2003 :::
 

The "Too Elusive " was a 80 ft ketch that slid into the Ala Wai harbour one day like a long tall glass of water. All teak trim Kevlar sails and Kiwi crew. Except for two Aussies. Seems the two countries have some sort of rivalry.

We'd been working through a long hot summer plying the tourists with rental water toys so we were ready for a diversion. Any time a boat moors that is too big for the standard slip they shunt it over to the commercial wharf. Which is how we ended up meeting the crew of this remarkable craft.

This boat was being sailed back from Freemantle Western Australia by a paid crew for some east coast billionaire who simply flew to whatever exotic local he positioned his boat at, enjoyed a holiday then flew back east to make more money before repositioning his boat for the next getaway.

The crew loved it. They came over to our sad operation and asked about renting some sleds. We were done for the day but since our owner was also away as well, all the mice in the marina decided to play. One thing led to another and pretty soon we were on board the yacht blasting music and enjoying the last of "da bub"

Next thing you know darkness fell and if you've ever met any one from down under you know that after a few drinks the boasting is off the Richter scale. Lots of "oy's" and "crikey's" and "struths" and "Fair dinkums" later we stumbled off the yacht and for some strange reason decided to have a dingy race in darkness of the moonless Hawaiian night.

These were no ordinary dingy's mind you. The "Too Elusive" had two 18 ft Zodiac hard bottom inflateable's with 35 horse Mercury outboards. The kiwis in one, the Aussies in the other, not to be out done by our commonwealth cousins Myself and my partner had access to our own 16 ft v bottom Zodiac with 30 horse Mariner. The race was on.

The agreed route was out of the harbour along the south shore to Diamond Head light and back. There was a huge south swell running and the competitive juices and beer courage were flowing.

Off we went into the darkness, halfway along the south shore the stupidity of the venture became apparant. Both the Kiwi's and the Aussies misjudged the swell and were soon way inside the surfline. It was only a short matter of time before both craft were caught inside by huge set marching in from the inky darkness The only way to survive is to motor out into the breaking waves both crews made a valiant effort and blasted over at least 4 of the mountains of water coming at them. The fifth wave, the clean up set crushed both craft. Watching from outside we saw four huge jumps surely damaging their crafts on impact. After the fifth we motored in quickly and towed the sorry mess further out before the next set loomed. "Crikey" said the Aussies, "Oy" said the Kiwi's both hulls were broken and all crew members soggy and shaken. We managed to get them back safely to the Harbour where we stowed what was left of the gear called it a draw stumbled over still dripping to the nearest pub.

"Struth!"

::: posted by Mega at 6:06 AM

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Mega means big or large stir because I like to mix it up