Rebuilding a part of History - “Lord Jim

When as a yacht Captain I returned home to Australia from the USA for the past eight years, I found work at an Australian Ship Yard working on a large boat.

A young English Captain approached me about a British Flagged yacht called “Lord Jim”, which was leaving after three years, He then joined as a deck hand and ended up as the only person left on board after crossing the ocean.

The vessel was at a marina Marina in the Whitsundays, Queensland. It wanted an available Yacht Captain take it to Thailand via The Great Barrier Reef and Cape York. The brochure looked great, as they always do.

It was an old steel hull ketch with aluminum super structure, riveted together, and built in the UK by Camper & Nicholson in 1977.

I gave him a CV and forgot about it till I got a call from the owner who was psychologist in the performance coaching business .Of course he was a very convincing man. I took the job.

After driving north for two days I arrived at the marina and saw the boat, I realized I’d been conned. The yacht was a mess.

As It turned out every thing about the boat was expired from the cruise permit to the ships regulation. Even the safety equipment was way past its used by date and sad to say needing to be replaced. This was very upsetting because I wanted to go.

The old Captain left two days later with the owners disputing his return ticket to England.

As a relief captain Phuket started the rebuild paying bills with my own money to save face, as the promised boat money and boat credit card never arrived.

About 19 month later I arrived at the Yacht Haven Marina in Phuket . I even continued restoring the vessel to her former glory with all systems up and running within a limited budget.

Refitting this boat has bought great happiness to me and I am Proud of my efforts.

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