The History of Tiger Ben

Hello everyone a friend asked me to pen a bit of a  story of just where Tiger Ben originated.

Hmm
It starts here because of a completely different boat , the white centre console boat that we once capsized in the  notorious  Inverloch bar.

Dad used it to dive out of  with his mates mostly at Harmers Haven diving for crayfish off a two man hookah dive unit, 
I sat watch on that hookah often with my fishing rod in my hand and fresh crayfish legs for bait the sweep didnt stand a chance.

I also often doned a wetsuit , weightbelt and fins and took a dive with a buddie.
Its the most strange sensation to be able to actually breathe underwater, the first time is the hardest to actually take a breath as your brain tells you that its just wrong .

So dad used this boat up until he couldn’t toke the heat of the local fisheries any longer.
My eldest sister was a chiropractor working at San Remo and her boss Tony had a near new boat that  he wanted to sell,
my sister must have told dad as unbeknown’s to mum he took a cheque out of the cheque book on mothers day and he secretly met Tony and dad purchased the boat .

He towed it home and  announced to mum that I have brought you a mothers day present,
You can imagine mums delight when she went out to the backyard,
Mum hates the water and hates boats , so it was a popular gift , with the old man thinking he was pretty funny.
The hookah  was transferred to the new boat and the white one left to the weather in the yard .

Fast forward s few years and  I had started my apprenticeship as a motor panel beater and I was looking for a new project to undertake.
Mum was a bit more of a soft touch so I asked her if I could have the old boat to do up?

She had no hesitation on giving it to me ,
I was wrapped even though it needed lots of tlc , but I was up for the challenge,
that was all really short lived, as when mum told dad what she had done and she had given me the old boat,
I saw something that I wasnt  usto,
dad cracked the shits told mum off and took the boat straight back off me .

Fast foward a few more years the old boat hasn’t moved an inch , its got grass and mould growing on it , Im not sure exactly what  happened next but then dad asked me out of the blue one day if I wanted the old boat?
I nearly fell over but i accepted the offer and she was  mine.

In my dreams I could see the finished product and she was Tiger Ben , but I never put her name on ,
I took it around to the local boat builder and Wonthaggi Borough mayor
Dess Biggs ,

I put her gently down off the trailer and  on the concrete in the front shed and for the next three months me covered in dust under Deses close guidance I repaired every crack , mark and learned how to fibreglass.
Ready for painting.

I took her to my panel shop and primed her in hifill 2k primer and  then Craig the painter put the coats of white on her .
A bit of assembly and work on the trailer and she was ready for its maiden voyage.
We chose Yanakie near the prom.
Me , Pauli and Ben and Dylan launched her together as a family.

At the ramp my boat got plenty of of attention with one man making me an offer to buy it on the spot.

I didn’t accept the offer but instead launched her and we headed out into the middle channel for a fish .
King George whiting were the target .
We all caught fish and had a blast.

So I used that boat for years with one engine upgrade and a power  increase to go with that .
Eventually I swapped it for a spa bath

Now the boys that my dad dived with had got their own boats and hookah units  , so the yellow boat got put away in the shed .
In the meantime dads ears were giving him trouble to clear them and equalise the pressure and to top it off he literally one day he burst a lung ,
The weird thing about that is that dad was at least a four packets of 50 gr white ox rollie smoker for  as long as I can remember .
The day he burst his lung was the day he quit smoking.
None of us could believe it .
But he has never touched a fag since .

So dad was not a keen  fisherman so the yellow boat just stayed in the shed getting dusty.
One day my nephew said to me that pop had given him the yellow boat, I was livered , I went to mum and  dads snd I confronted dad

Did you give my nephew the boat dad?
He said no I did not.
He then to my astonishment said do you want it?
I said yes
He said its yours .
I said thankyou
And I towed it home that day.
It needed a little if work as it hadn’t been going for years .
So I started with the fuel tanks and the  engine’s .
It has on the back a pair of Johnston 60 hp two stroke motors.
New plugs clean fuel filter screens and a pair of batteries and its now time to fire them up ,
Surprisingly they both roared  into life quite easily, I ran them long enough to get a hot tell tail
water stream from the cylinder head so the thermostats and water pumps were good to go.

So a mate was keen to be my fishing partner and we set off for Newhaven boat  ramp.
To say it was exciting is a complete understatement.
I was so pumped.
We got her backed in and I got in and started up both engines were running and I let then warm up .
Then I put the engines in reverse and backed her off the trailer on her maiden voyage.

The excitement  was short lived as I forgot to check something at home.
I accelerated off the trailer backwards and oops , there’s no steering at all , the steering wheel was seised solid  

A bit of a struggle to reload her on the trailer with no steering , and my tail now is right  between my legs .
It wasnt the end of the world , as me and my mate fixed it all up ready for another launch day.

Take two , I  clearly remember that first fishing trip , I spent longer trying to keep both motors going , it would be one engine cover off get it started the other one would stop .
So it wasn’t a fun trip.

I got them pretty well  sorted after that but realisability was always on my mind then .
We had some really interesting trips together so here is just one of them .

We went out offshore to catch flathead and there were no limits back then but we would consistently catch over the hundred mark in our favourite spots.
It was a normal sort of weather day out there and the fish were there for the catching .
Halfway through the afternoon a seal turned up at the back of the boat and he gave us buggery pinching our fish as we wound up off the hook .
This went on for hours , and the wind started to blow .
We paid absolutely no attention as we were having a blast jaggin flatties and  trying to beat the seal.
Back then we didnt have the luxury of mobile phone apps like for weather updates or warnings to heed .

We should have woken up when the seal left us that something was up .
A look to the horizon showed us that it was definitely going to be a wet trip home.
We packed up our gear and we headed off homeward into nightmare conditions, neither of is were too concerned, but we probably should have been  .

Heres the description.

The white caps  on the chop  was blowing off like rain , everywhere,
I would put the swell between 5 and 6 metre .
It was painfully slow going and extremely rough.
But we were making ground when the most unusual thing happened.

I dove up one large swell to the top but it had a short close interval swell tight in behind it ,

As Tiger Ben fell from the top of the swell to the trough the  short interval swell just went right over the top of us.
It swallowed us .
We were actually inside the wave .

We both looked at each other in disbelief and  then in that split second the water came in on our heads as the bimin top frame broke from the weight of the water.

We both saw the funny side of it but it was now a slow cold trip home soaking wet .

So a fair few years later I put the 150 Mercury on Tiger Ben  and that made her a new boat as it handles completely different,

Then one day to make it official I commissioned my mate go put her name on her belly,

I have also told my old man , old Curls a lot of times that he picked
a fantastic hull with the Dominator and  lucky for me that
Dylby Roo is the exact same pedigree,

Cheers xxx
Curlyg