This I guess is another story and it’s about how I came up with the TB name , and its meaning and and its significance, so I’ll try and keep the story short , but I don’t quite think somehow that it will be .
It all started when I was sixteen years old and I started an apprenticeship as a panel beater at Mick Moresco,s panel shop in Wonthaggi ,
There was a man that would come in every now and then and he would weld up all sorts of things mostly with
oxy acetylene .
But also with stick .
After a while I got to know him his and his name was
Kevin Moresco and he was my bosses Micks brother ,
We quickly struck up a special friendship , and he took the time and taught me the finer points of gas welding even to the point of him teaching me welding of the impossible blend of metal all by us making and casting our own welding rods from the parent metal , and selecting the correct flux .
Keven was a master welder and he also was a local school bus driver that every kid absolutely loved being on his bus .
He was also a master fisherman , spending his time mostly fishing at San Remo every Sunday catching big King George whiting ,
One day out of the blue he asked me if I would like to come fishing with him that Sunday as his then fishing partner Curly Trotto had bought his own boat and apparently abandoned ship with Kev
I was so excited to be going in his place .
So mum packed my lunch and I set out on our first trip in the mother duck , that’s what Kevin’s boat was called and she was an old sturdy wooden boat ,
The first thing I realised was we were using 20 lb line instead of ten lb and we were basically using snapper rods instead of light whiting rods ,
I thought this odd but I soon found out why , when a monster whiting would bite they would hit so hard and make the rod hit the water ,
Needless to say with every whiting bite the adrenaline would be pumping
Another thing I noticed when you catch a monster that when they would come out of the water and come over the transom toward the boat whilst in the air they would be making a strange wind sucking sound almost whistling noise ,
it was music to my ears ,
So I was so fortunate and I ended up fishing with Kevvy for two seasons until I actually got myself a girlfriend and his health faded ,
Out of that time I never ever beat his fish tally even though we would catch lots of fish our worst day we caught thirteen thumpers ,
So he was the master and I was his apprentice
So as the day progressed we would stop fishing for half an hour during slack tide because nothing would happen , and the fish wouldn’t bite , so some days were super hot temperatures with us both sitting in the sun so one day out of the blue I was so hot that I was melting and I ripped off my shirt and stood up and dived straight in .
When I looked back at the boat Kevin had a really strange look on his face as we were in Bass Straight in the open water , and I had left the boat .
I had a nice dip and climbed back on board ,
Kevvie looked at me and said you are a tiger Mick , and the name stuck and from then on every time it was a hot day at slack tide he would ask me if I was going to swim and then happily sit there with a big smile on his face and watch me ,
back then I was a strong swimmer and I found out later why Kevvie had looked at me so strange at first ,it was because he couldn’t swim so he couldn’t have helped me if I got in trouble.
So there is what the Tiger means in the name and a few years later I was restoring a boat of my own and the name of her just came to me as Ben my first son had been born , so the name just popped into my head partly I wanted to honour my mate Kevvie and also became I was so proud to be a dad .
So I had that boat for a number of years and I never got around to putting that name on her side , and then I got the Dominator and as things go and progress my mate Boat ,did all of her stickers for me ,
Now it’s time to do them all again this time the big TB stickers will be in the black colour as part of the refurb ,
I’ll be super excited to see them go on , but I still have to take the old TB stickers off,
So that’s the short version of how I came up with the name , and I really think it suits her ,
My other son Dylan doesn’t miss out as I have a project boat they I am restoring and building that one day will be his
I have documented the progress on Facebook some time back but that is my next major project to complete
It’s called Dylby Roo
It’s another
Swift Craft Dominator cut down to a make it into a centre console , and I’m sure when it’s finished it will turn a few heads
Cheers
Curlyg