OUTLAW EAGLE MANUFACTURING

[YKX]

Jetboating across the world



A local elephant is engaged to help get one of the jet boats well up the bank at a stop in India.



Dragging jet boats halfway across the world in containers is not most people’s idea of a relaxing holiday. It’s pretty costly, for one thing. But the adventurous spirit runs deep for Ashburton’s Duncan Storrier and the handful of other jet boaters really passionate about the sport. That passion has taken them halfway across the world and back twice, and this time, New Zealanders will get to experience it on the small screen. Grant Shimmin caught up with Storrier and some of his fellow adventurers.

Mention jet boating and for most people you conjure up visions of super-fast craft racing down relatively calm rivers with towering, rocky buttresses alongside, which the driver seems intent on sticking you into on a fairly regular basis … only to show just how manoeuvrable and nimble the craft is by pulling well clear of any danger, seemingly just split seconds from disaster.
Charging along shallow stretches of water before the driver pulls off a massive spin as the deeper stuff is reached, showering the passengers with water, is part of the traditional view too.
Perhaps you’ve seen on some footage of jet boat racing in New Zealand or Australia on television, watched those daredevils fling their craft around courses that look too shallow and dangerous by half.
But it’s only a select few who are passionate enough to spend weeks on end in some of the most remote parts of the world, taking on towering rapids that might swamp and sink their boats in a matter of seconds, with arduous road trips and primitive repair facilities all part of the deal.
However, Ashburton’s Duncan Storrier has a pioneering spirit and it’s clearly something he shares with numerous other members of that “fairly tight group” who are passionate about their jet boating.
CBS Canterbury chief executive David Street describes it as his “prime recreational activity”.
And Jeff Horne, who got his first jet boat at 16 – he’s “46 or 47” now – and works for Maritime New Zealand as a “safety auditor in commercial jet boating” puts in “150 to 200 engine hours a year”, around “10 times what most recreational boaters do”.
The trio are three of a number of enthusiasts who have taken jet boating to new frontiers in the past three years and the story of their latest adventure, which among other things saw them following in the footsteps of the ultimate Kiwi adventurer, Sir Edmund Hillary, is set to be told to a national television audience come Monday. The documentary, to screen on TV3 at noon, had its premiere in Christchurch on Tuesday night, before an audience of more than 700.
Storrier has been involved in jet boating since the 1980s, inspired by his late godfather, Guyon Campbell, an Ashburton farmer who later opened a marine dealership in town and was an avid jet boater himself. He took to the sport competitively in 1993 and won a world title with Mark Cromie in the USA in 1996. That combination – Cromie as driver and Storrier as navigator – will attempt to repeat the feat in Canada in June.
But for Storrier and his adventurous mates, their interest has moved well past just the racing side of things. Jet boating has become their window on the world.
That started in 2005, when six boats were taken across to Southern Africa and the mighty Zambezi River, famous for its wild white water and a number of other rivers in that part of the world were attempted.
Shots of the boats speeding along close to where the iconic Victoria Falls cascade down leave one in little doubt about the adventurous element of that trip.
In mid-December, though, a smaller group that included many of the party who’d been to Africa took on the challenge of Bhutan, Nepal and India.
A major aim was reprising the legendary 1968 ascent of Nepal’s Sun Kosi River undertaken by Sir Edmund, Jon Hamilton – whose father, Sir William, invented the jet boat 52 years ago – and Jim Wilson. But it went further too, in that the group boated the five major river systems of the Himalayas, much of the territory they covered never having been jet boated before.
If these trips all sound like a bit of a logistical nightmare, they clearly are, as the documentary makes clear in the case of the last one. But given all that they’re also, Storrier says, immensely “enriching experiences” for those involved.
They’re “opportunities to take a bunch of interested people to a different continent and culture, and to couple that with cutting new ground in jet boats”.
The World Jetboat Safaris expeditions are run entirely on a cost-share basis, helped along by sponsorship. And the assistance of some rather helpful businesses, including a couple in Ashburton. CM Spares builds the boat trailers “and all the trailer componentry” for these arduous journeys, while the Triangle Garage builds the boats’ powerful engines and keeps them maintained.
While it may, at heart, be a tourism venture, there are no passengers, in the sense of people just sitting back and enjoying the ride. Though Storrier is responsible for much of the forward planning – last year’s Asian trip took a full year’s worth, sitting behind a computer, studying maps … a far better use of his evenings than “watching Coronation Street” – teamwork is everything.
“You really need a solid team of people to make up an expedition and to get through the challenges and adversities,” Storrier says.
The right mix of adventurers is vital. “We had a doctor (Wellingtonian Ross Denton), we had mechanical people, people who know how to build boats …”
Ultimately, the team of 12 that took on the challenge was a mix of Kiwis and Aussies, each with their own important function, including Sydney cameraman/producer/editor Paul Mullan, who put together the documentary.
Those roles, in many cases, started well before the group actually took off for Calcutta to begin the epic adventure.
“I guess I end up being the banker,” explains Street, whose role at CBS Canterbury makes him the ideal candidate.
Looking after the finances for such a venture not only means collecting money from the participants and making sure various things are paid for when they need to be, but also dealing with foreign currency requirements at the other end.
For Horne, the role was a wide one. “Dogsbody, fix-it,” he says when asked to describe it, adding that most of the several thousand high-resolution photographs shot on the trip were his work.
That’s when he wasn’t sorting out some problem or other, however, often using a fair degree of innovation.
He talks in the present tense. “Duncan points at me and says ‘fix it’. It doesn’t matter what it is.”
Problems he tackled in that manner included a real issue with launching into the Sun Kosi in Nepal. While Hillary and Hamilton’s expedition, which was seen by the mountaineer as a way of opening up access to some of Nepal’s remote communities, took place shortly after the monsoon season, with high river levels, the 2006/7 version happened three months later with rivers much lower.
With things “going pear-shaped” and the launch proving “a shambles”, Horne had to do some swift thinking, but the party ultimately managed to launch their boats down the steep bank at Chatra with the aid of logs. An interesting way to spend the last daylight hours of Christmas Day. But then the morning had been spent searching a Nepalese border town for an engineering works where they could fit proper towbars to some relatively ancient (1980s vintage) vehicles provided for towing their boats.
Horne, who had also designed a system allowing the boats to be put in containers without the use of a crane for transport to Asia, had to use some innovation to sort the towbar situation, with not much in the way of tools.
“We had to use an arc welder as a drill, a cut-off saw and a welder”. Power was achieved by nailing “two leadhead nails into a lamp post, with phase and neutral connected to the main power wires”.
“We had to improvise with what was thrown at us,” said Horne.
Attempting to boat the region’s numerous rivers in the dry season meant exposure to far more rapids and so-called “rock gardens” than Hamilton’s party faced, though the more robust structure of the aluminium boats, coupled with vastly more powerful engines, helped to overcome that, though not without incident.
On Boxing Day the team, accompanied by Asian-based river guide Dave Allardice, originally from Nelson, set off up the Sun Kosi and into the Arun, where Wilson had sunk a boat, Sherpa, on the 1968 trip.
Aussie Matthew Fallow recounts the incident in Jet Boating magazine:
“Eventually we came across a very steep rapid, eerily similar to the very rapid Jim Wilson faced in Sherpa in 1968 … We set off to climb it but in the midst of entering the rapid, got caught on a rock and spun around, the boat quickly going under at the rear and beginning to roll. All hands rushed to one side, buying precious seconds, as the current then pushed us around the rock and out of the rapid.”
Having “bilged out” on the bank, Horne tried the other side of the rapid but decided it was too dangerous and turned around.
In the wake of the close call, an emotional Storrier called Jon Hamilton in New Zealand on the satellite phone and recounted the incident. Nepal was declared the “holy grail of jet boating” during the discussion.
The next couple of days saw some interesting and harrowing experiences as the intrepid adventurers tackled the many rapids dotting the Sun Kosi at this dry time of year, many of which would not have offered the same challenge in monsoon season.
Given the ferocity of some of the rapids, boats could get up but in many cases not get back.
One, which they attempted nearly halfway up, and christened “Jet Boat Rapid” after each boat successfully negotiated it, is described by Fallow:
“This was a deal breaker and threatened the entire trip. Such was the difficulty of the river over the previous 150km or so, we could not boat back and had another 160km to cover before the river exit at Dolaghat.
“A very big decision was made by those high on the totem and Jeff, Duncan and Neville (Kelly) took all boats up successfully, two of them having huge moments but finally making the climb to the top.”
Horne said the party negotiated some 71 rapids on the Sun Kosi. “Of those probably 40 were one-way ones”.
Street explained that in the jet boats it was, in many cases, easier to go up a rapid than the other way as there was more control and drivers could “sit in the current” and bide their time waiting for a way through.
Those involved clearly finished the trip with a huge sense of achievement and some indelible memories, especially the drivers who had to take their boats up some of the more harrowing rapids alone, while other party members carried the on-board supplies around.
Getting the boats and trailers back to their starting point in Phuntsaholing, Bhutan, after the end of the expedition was another arduous trip for Horne and three other party members.
The adventurers have been home for some months, but clearly their minds have already turned to the next expedition.
Street said he expected those who had made the previous two trips would “all probably put their hands up” for the next one.
Options on the table appeared to be a crossing of South America “at about the same latitude as us”.
He believed it was a 4000km trip, including 1800km on the water.
The other option was Siberia, though the tour guide they had “teed up” was currently circumnavigating the equator and may not be available for some time.
Either way, it’s a fair bet the expedition members will be making some more incredible memories.
April 7 2007



Jeff Horne takes one of the group’s three boats through raging rapids on the Sun Kosi in Nepal.





David Street, David Leckie and Matthew Fallow preparing to take their lives in their hands, on a 165m freefall swing at Last Resort in Nepal.

*** How about it Boys, do we smell a world record in the making?!?!?!?

[ALEX]

We ordered a copy of the dvd of this expedition "Ultimate Ascent" from Paul Mullan at blackmagic in Australia; excellent quality. professionally done. Duncan Storrier is crewing with Mark Cromie in the Worlds at the end of June and will have 20 copies of the dvd with him.