94 Boating New Zealand
established and Sharpie was making inroads into the DFC loan.
Unquestionably his gregarious, easy-going nature, along
with his professional competence won him many customers.
There were other reasons for Floating Dock’s success: with
the freeing of import controls and a booming sharemarket,
boaties were happier paying others to do their maintenance.
Additionally, serious yacht racers quickly learned a regular water
blast translated into positions on the track.
The Floating Dock settled into a nice little earner. But life has
a habit of dealing up unpleasant surprises and over the years
Sharpie’s been dealt three. The first occurred around 2009,
when he suffered a series of strokes and was forced to cut back
on work. While he’s since recovered, for a time he was facing a
forced, early retirement.
Indirectly, his health issue helped create the second
situation. While at home recovering, his then employee decided
to help himself to the till. A trusting soul, Sharpie didn’t have
the most robust financial systems, a situation the employee
took full advantage of. It took several years before the ongoing
theft was discovered.
The third card was the most unpleasant. In 2010 Westhaven
Marina’s owners, Ports of Auckland (PoA), decided they
required Westhaven’s eastern sea wall for superyacht moorings.
At that time, Sharpie and Elliott were on an informal
quarterly lease arrangement, which had worked well for over 20
years. Initially, PoA took a hard stance, both businesses would
have to vacate the seawall and where they went wasn’t PoA’s
problem. Things looked grim.
Fortunately, Sharpie and Elliott had many Westhaven
friends including then Westhaven Marina manager Russell
Matheson and then chair of the Westhaven Marina Users’
Association, Trevor Dunn. Both went into bat for Sharpie
and Elliott. Additionally, hundreds of Westhaven boaties,aghast at the potential loss of their maintenance services,
signed a petition.
“Without that support I think we would have been gone.
It was absolutely marvellous the way they all supported me,”
says Sharpie.
Facing a backlash, PoA became more reasonable and after
countless meetings it was agreed Sharpie could relocate
to the end of X Pier. But PoA set tough health, safety and
environmental requirements, which Sharpie had to meet and
fund, to the tune of $150,000.
Sadly, despite being a well-established concern, Mast & Spar
Services didn’t survive. Elliott died unexpectedly in 2010 during
this process and his son Brett was forced to wind up the business.
Early in 2011 the Floating Dock was towed to its new
location, where apart from a minor shift around the corner of
X Pier, it’s been ever since. With hindsight, the move’s been
successful. The Floating Dock now has several new features;
a toilet, a well-equipped workshop and smoko room, while
its compressor and water blaster are now driven by 240-volts
rather than a noisy diesel.
Last year Sharpie decided he needed to spend more time
boating. He put the Floating Dock on the market and marine
engineer Clinton Shuker bought it. While Sharpie will still be
seen at the Floating Dock to ease the transition for Shuker, he’s
far more likely to be seen at the helm of his other baby, the Mk I
Corsair Amethyst.
On behalf of all Westhaven boaties, Boating New Zealand
wishes Sharpie a long and enjoyable boating retirement. After
40 years cleaning bottoms he’s certainly earned it. BNZBOATINGNZ.CO.NZRETRO BOATS Photos by John Macfarlane, Harold Kidd and Barbara Williams.
Know someone who should be featured in this column? Contact [email protected].LEFT Ken at
the compressor
controls,
making it look
easy.