Freight Train - Irukandji Sting- Adrian Platt

Sow a seed that blossom into a 200T captain.

 If anyone reading this knew Adrian Platt, they will know that whatever I write down in the following paragraphs will not do him justice. 

Adrian’s hands were shaking rather badly the day I met him. I told him later, that I honestly thought he had Parkinson’s and truly needed my help when he asked if I would help him fiberglass more beds and water tanks on Hammer.  Anyone who knows Adrian well knows, he quit school to build his first catamaran at the tender age of 16, built up a farm, and went on to be an incredibly accomplished man, which included crossing oceans, owning OzSail, co-owning ProSail, writing for the Multihull magazine and was actively involved in marine rescue.  Without a doubt, a self-made man and a driving force behind his success.   He most certainly was not in need of my HELP.

When I shared my Parkinson thoughts with Adrian, he howled with laughter.  He had been out the night before and got TOTALLY wasted.  He had asked me to help him because he was terribly hung over and was hoping he could wrangle me into doing most of it, so he could return to the world of air-conditioning!

By nightfall of the very day we were introduced, Tim the skipper of Spank Me, had been bit by a Irukandji. A small jellyfish no larger than 2cm; its sting is not incredibly painful or scarring, but within 30 minutes of being bit a the person will develop servere back and abdominal pain, racking limb or joint pain, and experience nausea, vomiting, sweating, agitation, and respiratory and cardio impairments.  Calls had been placed and Tim was being airlifted off Spank Me and was enroute to a hospital. Another skipper had to be driven out to Spank Me as it was at anchor in Hook Passage filled with worried backpackers.  Another skipper, also named Tim was available to go, but he had been drinking that afternoon and needed time to ensure that he was alcohol free.  Adrian asked if I would go with Tim and him on Freight Train, just in case Tim was not completely alcohol free, and could not be left on Spank Me when we arrived.  He advised me if that happened, he would stay on Spank Me with Tim, and I would need to bring freight train back by myself.  I ageed to go. 

Night had well closed in when we left Able Point Marina and headed to Hook Passage.   We were just outside the marina when we realized we had no navigation lights.  Adrian pointed to a light way off in the distance and told me to head towards the light and to stay clear of all boats while he went below to rustle up some food and water to quicken Tim’s alcohol removal process.  He returned with a heap of food and went off to resolve the navigation light problem.

Adrian is VERY adept at solving anything – this I did not know at the time; I had just met him that afternoon.  He came back and told Tim and I that we would be running dark. I did not think to ask him why.  We got Tim over to Spank Me and hung out there pumping more fresh water into their tanks, ensuring that all the backpackers were fine and that Tim was alcohol free.

Adrian talked to me about getting Freight Train back in the dark without navigation lights, and not having any dock help in the marina.  I listened very keenly as he described how to do this, especially docking her without dock assistance.  I had already decided that if I was sent out alone I was not going into the marina until the sun and humans were up. 

As it ended up Adrian decided Tim was fine and we could take Freight Train back together.  We motor sailed across to Airlie Beach. It was a gorgeous night and we spent the time chatting and getting to know each other.  I finally admitted to Adrian my plan of just going around in circles until dawn and he howled and almost pushed me overboard.  He confided that he knew he was coming back with me on Freight Train but that he wanted to see how I reacted to having to take Freight Train all by myself.  He was glad to hear my plan; because he said I never once flinched and he truly believed that I would have docked Freight Train.  Adrian did make me dock Freight Train that night at about 4:00 a.m..  He told me it would be a great experience. He was right.  He gave really great instructions, was incredibly patience, and his lessons have proven to be invaluable. It was Adrian, on that dark (what I like to refer to as my drug run night), who told me that he thought that I would make a really great commercial captain. Thus, sowing a seed.

When we were coming across, Adrian found out that when I was not living on a head sail on Eureka II, I was staying at the Water Front Youth Hostel.  When we got back to Airlie Beach, he told me that he would not have me staying at the hostel anymore.  He had a spare room and it was now mine!  The price he said was my being his apprentice while fixing up Hammer.  It was an offer I could not refuse so I took myself off Eureka II and went to work alongside Adrian. 

 

What a mind! What talent! What humour! What a life!  By day, we hardly chatted or saw one another. He had roughed in the water tanks, showed me how to fiberglass and ran away to run OzSail and ProSail.   I would leave Hammer late in the afternoon, and around 9:00 p.m. we would go back to Hammer, turn on a work light and start grinding and sanding, and if anything turned me off fibreglassing, it was the grinding and the sanding.

The first night after working on Hammer until well after midnight, Adrian and I walked back to his apartment.  Behind his apartment was a public swimming pool.  When we got close, Adrian started ripping off his clothes. He took a flying leap into the pool.  “Jump in Ruey. The best way to get fiberglass off is with cold water.”  That is all the incentive I needed.  I took one big leap. I hated the itchy feel of fiberglass!

That is how we ended every night working on Hammer with a fresh dip in the pool before going up to his apartment and having proper showers.  I would make something to eat while Adrian showered, but more often than not, by the time, I got out of the shower, Adrian would had turned on the nature channel, eaten a bit, and be fast asleep on his couch.  I would go to my bed – a VERY LUMPY bed…and if anyone reading this has ever stayed in Adrian’s spare room, they will know how lumpy that futon mattress was.  I had to find the grooves between the lumps and kind of fit my body parts in.  But that lumpy bed still beat Eureka II's head sail.  I enjoyed my stay at Adrian's.  When we did find time to chat, WOW! The stories, lessons, enthusiasm, and passion for life that he had were amazing. He showed me photo albums of his first boat – the catamaran that he had quit school to build, the farm that he lived on and built up with an English girl (I believe), heaps of pictures of the latest fish he had caught, his favourite little person in the world, Yves. – and so many more pictures of family, friends, boats, motorcycles, fish, fishing, and events.  All his paraphernalia had hilarious, amazing or beautiful stories to accompany them.  He loved his artificial crocodile that he had scared so many tourists with and would often take it off the shelf and make sure it was still in good working order.

I had only about four weeks of sharing his home and being his apprentice before he threw me out!  One day he came home told me about his friend Alex Sinclair had just bought a catamaran in Fort Lauderdale and needed someone who would go the distance from the US to the Philippines.  He was so certain that this trip was meant for me that the next morning on the table were his sextant, navigational software, some nautical books and manuals, and a whole heap of little odds and ends, including some fishing gear. I took everything he gave me but the fishing gear.  He laughed and told me to think of that gear when I was starving my way across the Pacific.

The day I left Airlie Beach, we had spent most of the day running around, securing down boats as Cyclone Larry was bearing down on the East Coast.  At the ferry terminal, he jumped out of his car and said, “Alex might not know he needs you but he does, and he will sort that out very quickly, and he is going to owe me BIG TIME for this one!” With a big laugh and a huge hug he sent me off.  

There was never any thought that we would not meet again as he was storing a big part of my travelers life in his storage room in the garage of his apartment.  For those reading this article that do not know, Adrian Platt was killed tragically shortly after I arrived in Subic Bay with Constellation II.  Alex Sinclair collected my box and brought it to Constellation II. 

It took the wonderful Mal Robertson of Eureka II to get me to Airlie Beach. Freight Train, an Irukandji Sting, and Adrian Platt bestowing his confidence in me to sow the 200T captain seed, and Alex Sinclair of Constellation II, to nuture and tend the seed, and viola, a 200T captain bloomed.