Golden reunion for former ship engineer

The Golden Lea made news recently when it became stranded in the Mahakipawa Arm during high winds, and started a row between Marlborough District Council and its current owner.

But former ship’s engineer Dave Daily remembers when the vessel was in the headlines for all the right reasons in 1962.

Dave was aboard the 100-tonne Golden Lea for its 70-day transit from Fraserburgh, Scotland to Wellington Harbour, with the vessel’s 64-day trip from the English Channel to New Zealand setting a record at the time.

However, Dave recalls that, at the time, it was just a free journey home for him.

“I’d been at sea for four and a half years by then, waiting for another shipping company to get in touch with me about six weeks and happened to be reading the paper one morning to see that advert.

“They told me they had got 400 applications and I needed to be in Fraserburgh in about a week by the time the letter got back to me.”

Leaving Fraserborough, the Golden Lea came through the Caledonian Canal, down to the Azores before travelling across the Atlantic to the Panama Canal, then across the Pacific to Tahiti before its final voyage to Wellington Harbour.

“I knew it had been through some good seas up the North Sea fishing and we only had a few minor problems like a fuel injector, but she was secure in a cross sea between Fort William and Oban which is pretty brutal when it started to roll.

“The engine had been overhauled and not quite run in yet, so we started using a lot of oil – about two pints a day - so stopped in Dublin for a 30-gallon drum on board to keep topping it up.

“We were supposed to stop, I think, in Puerto Rico but the Cuban crisis blew up and we couldn’t get into that port, so we went to Willemstown in Curacao, then got stuck for a day at the Canal during Panamanian Independence day.

"I was used to the biggest ships and looking down on everyone else in my travels, so having our little vessel and following these huge tankers and liners through was very different.”

Dave says the 21 days spent sailing the Pacific was a strange experience but “you just had to keep going”.

“We went around in circles for the night at Tahiti hearing the frivolity on shore, which is quite annoying after you’ve been 21 days at sea and they won’t take you in.
Then we couldn’t get a beer the next day because the pub was closed before we left for another fortnight to Wellington.”

Dave says then he lost track of the Golden Lea until it was reported abandoned in the Mahikapawa Arm thanks to Local Democracy Reporting.

“I knew it had gone to Bluff, made some inquiries down when I was down that way one time, and somebody said it’s been converted to an oyster boat.”

Dave had many jobs across Wellington, as freezing worker, lifeguard, painter and framer, before retiring as a cleaner and moving to Marlborough, originally to look after his brother’s Resolution Bay bach.

“I’ve done a lot of boating around the place, but I hadn’t been out in the boat for a number of years, and I didn’t realize she was here. When I saw the name, I concocted it’s not a Kiwi spelling and saw the photos, but it looked entirely different to when we left it. I rang the Harbourmaster and asked him about the details, history and what the length was and he said ‘68 foot, an old North Sea fishing boat launched in 1948’ and it all matched. It’s a sad state of affairs that such a great vessel is in, but it’s brought back a lot of memories,” he added.