Brendan Harris
Howdy, Im in Europe at the moment working on superyachts. I have been working at sea for the last eight years and am fed up with writing loads of emails telling everyone what I am up to. So, I hope this helps.BrendanH
Travel Blog Posts
November 30th 2007
It’s good to be back at sea again. Callisto is currently 40 miles south of Crete motoring along at a steady 12 knots towards Port Said, the harbour which marks the northern entrance to the Suez Canal. We left Antibes four days ago after waiting 48 hours for a weather window to open south of Sicily. It’s been a very good passage so far, only 24 hours of slightly bumpy weather yesterday interrupting the excellent conditions. It’s getting warmer and brighter with every watch which is quite a relief as France was starting to get a little too chilly for my meagre, mainly summer wardrobe to cope with. I joined Callisto about six weeks ago in Marseilles’ Nautech shipyard, adjacent to the ferry terminal which in years past was the gateway to France for countless shiploads ... read more
May 9th 2007
So on it was Beaulieu-sur-mer to join the motley crew of the motor yacht Moira. Well not so motley actually, I had worked with Toby and Rona, the captain and the chef previously on the S.S. Catastrophe where Toby was the first mate and Rona the Chef. We were all good friends anyway and since I hadn’t been directly responsible for the succession of calamities we had faced, Toby obviously felt that I would make a reasonable addition to the crew. ‘Moira’ is a 28 metre (90 foot) semi-displacement motor yacht built by ‘Cantieri Naval Falcon’ in Via Reggio, Italy. http://www.falconyachts.com/en/90_nav.php The boat pictured on the website is actually the very boat we work on as it was the prototype for the Falcon 90 and subsequently used for all the photo shoots. She sails with four ... read more
April 13th 2007
A few movies and a few more scotches after leaving Heathrow I arrived back at Auckland International. I stepped through into the arrivals hall and was looking about for someone who might be willing to take pity on a smelly traveller when a small six year old torpedo launched itself out of the crowd and attached itself to my right thigh. Luckily it was only my niece Kyra happy to see me again and wanting a present of some sort. Luckily again I had one prepared (courtesy of Heathrow shopping plaza) and was able to ease the vice-like grip and keep her happy at the same time. I had come home to be groomsman for my brother Richard who was getting hitched to Melissa. It seems that just about every time I come home I get ... read more
July 8th 2006
After a fun few days in the desert with camels and scarab beetles, Hannah and I arrived in London and I was straight onto the agency to get me out on a ship asap. The first one was another suction dredger like the one I had worked on before I came back to NZ. The difference with this one was that it was summer and on the south coast so the weather was baking hot and flat as a pancake for the whole three weeks. Whenever I got off watch it was up onto the monkey island above the bridge with a towel and a good book for a bit of ray-catching. One of the problems with sea bed dredging around the UK is the quantity of ordnance scattered about. They used to dump all of ... read more
April 1st 2006
So it was back to New Zealand in April 2006, I had all the paperwork for my UK work visa completed and ready to go. I intended to be back for the minimum time necessary to get the visa as I had interviewed for and been offered a position with a ferry company called Norfolkline and needed only the magic stamp in my passport. In fact if I already had it I would have found myself in Korea as the delivery crew on a brand new cross channel ferry but as it was I didn’t end up working for them for another six months. So anyhoo, I found myself in NZ waiting for the UK embassy to do it’s thing with basically nothing to do. Well, nothing except travel about the country and party a lot ... read more
June 1st 2005
The next chapter in my yachting saga took a slightly different turn. Looking for a move up from chief chamois technician I took a job as second mate on a 50 metre motor yacht which at the time was in the last stages of construction in a shipyard in Istanbul. It was to turn into quite an education in how not to build boats. Our first little disaster occurred when a poorly tightened hose clamp on the air conditioning unit in the galley gave way and spilled all of its lovely blue fluid into the flooring, flooding the cabin below and destroying several thousand Euros worth of silk wall hangings. The galley was supposed to be a completely sealed fireproof box, yay for Turkish boat building! That was a fairly good indication of the way things ... read more
July 1st 2003
Hi all, I have decided that the Blogging bandwagon is a good one to be on, I have been travelling now for quite a few years and don't have any record of what I have been doing or the places I have been. The first couple of blogs will have a few bits and pieces of things I have been doing in the last few years, sort of bring things up to date. I apologise in advance if it gets a little bit heavy on things that float but those that know me will appreciate that there actually isn't anything more important than boats and ships. World peace and third world hunger being the obvious "politically correct" exceptions. My superyachting experience started in NZ in 2003 when I managed to swivel my right knee 180 degrees ... read more
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