Lord Jim" Rebuilding a part of History
As a yacht Captain, returning home to Australia from the Mediterranean, Caribbean and the USA for the past seven years, I quickly found work at Brisbane Ship Yard refitting a large sloop.
I was approached by a young English Captain of a British Flag yacht called "Lord Jim", who was leaving after three years, He joined as an unpaid deck hand and ended up being the only one left on board after crossing the Pacific.
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.
A CV was submitted and forgotten about but then I received a call from the owner who consequently was a psychologist in the motivational business .Of course I was very quickly convinced and took the job.
Going North north for two days I arrived at the boat and saw it was a mess and I had a sinking feeling that i had been conned.
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 captain of the ship quickly left unfortunately for him the owners were disputing his return ticket home.
Being the relief captain Phuket I desperately started the rebuild paying bills using my own money to progress, the promised boat money and 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.
Author John Jackson is a writer for relief captain Phuket a business that has excellent information on Phuket , Bali and Malasia as well as presenting available yacht captain which is a particularly difficult position to fill and need the right person.
http://ahcruise.com/specialty_cruise.php (panama cruise)
http://ahcruise.com/romantic-cruise.php
http://ahcruise.com/world-cruise-ships.php (pro’s and con’s of world cruises)
http://ahcruise.com/discount-cruises.php
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