Graeme Butler Butler's Swim with Dolphins www.swimwithdolphins.co.nz

An ex-Tauranga yachtie has come unstuck in his dealings with rescue services in Brisbane. Apparently the issue that has arisen is over Bill Goodhue's yacht Warlock being shifted from a mooring area where it had been anchored.

The two pictures show Warlock alongside the Napier Sailing Club wharf. The ketch was found 40 miles offshore after being missing for about a fortnight. One photo shows the dead albatross that apparently flew into the rigging at some stage during the voyage.

Anchoring in a mooring area is a no-no anyway, but it beggars belief that anyone would anchor a vessel in a mooring area and leave it unattended while returning to New Zealand.

Mr Goodhue is seeking almost $90,000 in damages after his ocean-going ketch, Warlock, keeled over and filled with water after it was allegedly moved from its mooring by Volunteer Marine Rescue in November 2003.

It seems neighbouring yacht owners became concerned about Warlock drifting about among them so they called on rescue services to help. Eventually the vessel was towed to another part of the estuary and re-anchored. It was not clear to anyone where the owner was. It may have been presumed that he had simply strolled off into town for an hour or two. I doubt anyone in their right mind would have guessed that the vessel was simply left on anchor while the owner flew out of the country.

Some time during the ensuing period of what I consider abandonment, the Warlock grounded and sank. So now, some six or seven years after the event, Bill Goodhue has instigated legal proceedings against the volunteer organisation that moved his vessel. A volunteer organisation that relies on public membership and funding for its existence is now faced with a long expensive legal battle.

I remember many years ago Bill occupied the small wharf beside Hutchinson and Harris' slipway, beside the 600-tonne slipway. Bill tied the then-dilapidated and unkempt Warlock to the wharf and left her there. This little wharf was an essential part of the slipway's operations and it was very inconvenient for vessels coming and going from the slipway not to be able to use it while one was launched and another was waiting. It was essential for the slipway to have somewhere vessels that needed repair could tie up for an hour or two while work was carried out so having this derelict vessel stuck in the way was a problem.

Bill was asked to move and refused, and when various attempts were made to get him to take his vessel away failed, Bill was trespassed by the slipway owners.

Sadly, jurisdiction of the wharf was legally fuzzy so Bill and his crew could only be trespassed from the slipway. Bill found he could ‘legally' walk to the slipway from the Moana Pacific wharf area. Eventually after many days, if not a week or two, he moved his vessel because a large fishing vessel was about to be brought into the slip.

The skipper told Bill that controlling this large vessel could prove difficult and that his ketch might well be damaged. Bill promptly moved his obnoxious yacht.

At some stage he anchored Warlock in front of the yacht club and left her there. But the yacht club racing programme obviously needed this area for keeler starts and so on.

Kids launched their small craft from there and raced and practiced. so having this unattended edifice plonked in the middle of their playground was very inconvenient.

Efforts to get Bill to move his yacht were slow but eventually successful - to a point.

The yacht showed up in the Waikareao Estaury in front of the fishing and diving club and remained there for a long time, also on anchor and unattended, unlit at night and a real hassle for the dozens of small vessel using the boat ramp.

Bill had a similar adventure with his long-suffering vessel during a voyage to the Chatham Islands. He had a sheet wrap around his prop. When he was 40 miles or so off Kaingaroa, a small fishing port on Chatham's rugged northern coast – and probably within VHF range, he called for a tow.

A fishing vessel went to his aid and he was towed in and given a mooring to use. A storm arrived within a day or so and the windlass, to which the mooring chain was attached, was torn from the deck.

Eventually Bill sailed Warlock to Waitangi on the western side of the island and site of the island's largest settlement. This is the Chathams – land of horizontal trees, perpetual gales, unpredictable weather, huge seas and currents. Waitangi has a mooring area akin to the main beach at the Mount.

Moorings are huge blocks with massive chains because the risk to vessels is considerable.

Bill plonked Warlock on anchor and hitched a ride back to do some urgent business at Kaingaroa, 40 or 50kms away. Warlock obeyed the laws of physics and dragged her anchor about the mooring area, bashed into a couple of boats and really pissed people off.

Bill's Chatham Islands adventure ended when he sailed away after his boat had been at Port Hutt for many months. The mooring's owners had let Warlock occupy it on a temporary basis and had no idea they would have Warlock on their hands for so long. Of course it is the way of Chatham Islands sea people, to look after vessels, even strays, in the same way responsible urban people look after their pets. So Warlock was checked regularly to make sure she didn't sink.

Bill sailed alone from the Chathams on a day when according to the local policeman, the worst northerly storm for five years was about to hit the island. Bill and his boat disappeared and for about nine days afterwards Search & Rescue became involved.

A lot of effort and money went into the search. There was much anxiety and worry among Bill's friends and family and as time went on, the chances seemed to be on the side of the Grim Reaper and Davy Jones' recycling plant rather than Bill, Warlock, or blind, uncanny luck.

However, Warlock was eventually found about 40 miles off Napier. Bill was alive and he eventually arrived in Napier with a garroted albatross in the rigging, alive and cold, but tied up at last.

Bill made headlines in Napier when he tied another vessel, the Oygle, to piles in Napier that were destined to be removed for construction of marina berths.

It was Bill's form of protest regarding Napier Yacht Club plans, supported by a majority, to build a marina in a mooring area. Bill reportedly described the club as a ‘secret squirrel society' for the benefit of wealthy boat owners and reckoned mooring owners were being compromised by the construction of more berths.

The police arrived after many months of protest and failed attempts at negotiation, and Oygle occupying prime space among the construction site. Oygle's chains were cut and Bill declared, belatedly, that he wasn't going to cause any more trouble.

That would have to be the understatement of the century.

In my opinion the trouble seems to be that Bill has little regard for convention or good seamanship. I can't imagine leaving a vessel on anchor in Australia and flying back to New Zealand without any provision for the future of the boat any more than I could imagine leaving my vessel at anchor in front of the yacht club, or tying up to a busy wharf, or in a narrow channel. These actions simply defy common sense. But what is even more amazing is that when a volunteer organisation takes action to safeguard the property of innocent persons in legal occupation of a mooring area, someone would expose them to the expense of litigation.

When I look at photographs of Warlock, and having been aboard her several times over the years, I wonder at the figure of $90,000.00 being claimed for damages.

If this court case is successful all volunteer organisation will be at risk of similar actions.

The cost of insurance and membership fees could rise. There could also possibly be a drop in recruitment as people consider the possible risk to themselves should they get caught up in some bizarre protracted and expensive litigation bought about by someone like Bill Goodhue.