zebedee..just shut the hell up
I worked with Brian back in '99 on the Ocean Master and i couldnt have had a better pilot to work with out there.
The story that makes me laugh the most is from one of our overnights in Pohnpei while the boat unloaded fish.
We had been drinking with one of the other kiwi pilots off the boats and our boat left without us early the next morning and we had to get taken from the hotel out to the ocean Master on a skiff while it was sailing out of the lagoon.
We stood on the deck watching the island in the morning sun and thought we go and wake the other pilot up we'd been drinking with since we had to get out of bed and he didnt.
So we faked a maintenance test flight and took off and flew right up to his balcony of the hotel he was staying in and hovered there blowing over all the beer cans on his table and attracting the attention of some local guy who came out shaking his fists, with quite a few other guests (who seem to enjoy the show). The other pilot didnt come out and so we booked, round to the restaurant on the hill for a breakfast wake up call hovering off their balcony (which they loved and treated us like celebrities everytime we went back there) then after a short flight round to some waterfalls went back to the boat and back to work.
The next day we had a company fax telling us we had created an international incident with the FAA, Australian Foriegn affairs and CAA and the FSM Minister for Transport and Communications (he had been the guy shaking his fist at us as we hovered outside the second floor balcony at the hotel he was having a quite sunday breakfast in, the guy we'd given the finger too)
All was smoothed over and the $10,000 fine avoided due to our convincing denials of all of it.....
You probably cant get away with that stuff now but we certainly got into the spirit of it all.
There were a few more adventures like that and it was enough to make 6 months on a Korean tuna boat a real career highlight.
He was a great guy Brian and it wouldnt have been as much fun out there without him.
Rest in Peace Mate