# The Maritime Reefer.



## Cpt Dick Brooks (May 13, 2013)

I was sitting at my table in The Seaside Garden Club, on the waterfront of Pago Pago, sipping on my first beer of the day. It was early yet, and there were only a few other drinkers in the bar... and none of the ex-pat crowd I normally drank with. I had just taken another pull from my glass of Vailima Beer, when the phone rang behind the bar. The owner's son, Morris, picked up the receiver, then waved me over to the bar, placing the phone on the counter.
It was Graham Stace, phoning from Auckland, in New Zealand. He was head of the New Zealand Fisheries Department. He told me that the dozen or so Korean and Taiwanese long-liners that were tied up in two lines in the middle of the harbour were being auctioned off the following week, and he wanted me to buy one for them. 
He suggested one of the two smaller ones, that were of some 130 feet overall, would do them just right. They wanted to convert her into a freezer mother-ship, to go around the smaller islands in the remote and exotic Northern Cook Islands, to collect the fish being stored in the freezer-rooms on shore for the local fishermen. They were trying to set up a local fishing industry, where the islanders could earn extra money to support themselves and their families.
I phoned the Harbour Master's Office, to obtain permission to board these two trots of fishing-boats and inspect them, and John Read put me through to the Marshal's Office, as they had been seized because of bankruptcy and were under his care. He gave me permission to survey them, and put me on the list of potential bidders at the forthcoming auction.
My ship, Debut, was moored up to the first buoy in the harbour, directly in front of The Seaside Garden Club, and the two trots of seized ships were close behind her. I used to anchor in the harbour, but even right up towards the western end of the harbour the water was still 110 feet deep. The next day, I motored my launch over to the long-liners to make my inspection, and chose the Nam Hae 67 as the most likely candidate for the New Zealand Fisheries Department.
The first five long-liners were auctioned, going for only two or three thousand dollars each... the cheapest being the 150 foot Catharine that had almost sank in the harbour, because the watchman for the ships had been drunk in my messroom and had passed out, went for only a thousand dollars. When the Nam Hae 67 was offered for opening bids, I put up my hand for the first thousand. 
There was much murmuring in the Court House, once the bids reached US $8,000, and all their eyes were flicking back and forward between me and a local American businessman. We kept on bidding against each other, with everyone shaking their heads at my bid of US $11,000. I had been authorized to bid up to US $25,000, but asked to try to keep it below US $20,000.
The Marshal eyeballed me, and asked why I wanted another ship... to make a catamaran, he suggested. Everyone in the Court Room laughed. He told me that I'd be spending the night in his cells, if I was messing him about. He reminded me that I had to pay 10% of my bid as a deposit within an hour of the end of the auction. I'd been asked by Graham Stace not to let anyone know that I was bidding on their behalf, as this could price them out of the market. 
I bid again to US $13,000, with the sweat running down my back, even in the air-conditioned Court Room. By now, there was absolute silence, as they all looked towards the local businessman, who shook his head. The hammer went down on my last bid, and I sighed in utter relief. I excused myself from the Court Room, and told the Marshal that I was going to the bank to get the US $1,300 deposit, and he pointed at the clock, reminding me that I had one hour.
Walking as fast as I could to the shipping agent that Graham Stace had given to me as their representative in Pago Pago, I collected their chequer with utter relief and returned to the Court House to pay the deposit. The Marshal was stunned, as he'd sent one of his officers to keep an eye on me, sure that he was having me in his cells that night for waiting his time.
Martin Petiffer arrived from New Zealand, to take charge of the conversation of the Nam Hae 67, and arranged for her to go up on the local slipway. I was a happy man when he handed me my chequer for US $650, the agreed five percent of the purchase price... not bad for an hour's work. The Nam Hae 67 was renamed the Maritime Reefer, but was always referred to as the Marijuana Reefer. She sailed with half a dozen of my crew for Penrhyn Island, in the Northern Cook Islands, but her refrigeration broke down, so she headed for Rarotonga, the capital of the Cook Islands.
A few weeks after her arrival, a cyclone hit the Cook Islands, and the Maritime Reefer broke her moorings in the harbour. With only old Archie on board as watchman, who was drunk at the time... again... she banged her way about in the dock, until she finally went out through the pier-heads. He managed to jumps ashore as she banged up against the pier-head wall, but forgetting to take a rope with him to secure the ship. She made her way out into the open ocean, to fetch up on the fringing outer reef alongside the wreck of the famous schooner, Wanderer. Whether she was recovered or not, I never found out, so rest in peace, the Maritime Reefer. All the best, Cpt Dick Brooks.


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