A ferry tale

Attempting to sell one of my "world's best ferry designs" in the 1990's to a local but prominent ferry company, the unhappy manager, known as GF, eyed me suspiciously. "You were here before trying to sell me a ferry design, weren't you?"

I nodded "Yes, twice before, but our designs are even better now, not only will they make better profits, but they will protect your company from any competitor" I declared happily. As chief designer, draftsman, tea maker and BD chief of our small company, I knew all about selling. Smiling in the face of the face of adversity was on Marketing page one.

His face contorted angrily "Listen carefully, I told you twice to piss off, now I'm telling you to f...off! we're not interested in your f...ing designs and we don't have any competition!"

I responded calmly "Don't be wishy washy about this, just tell me yes or no. Do you want a new design or not!" As he was about to explode into apoplexy, I stood up and left.

Now I knew why he was called GF!

I had learnt all about rejection as a pimply teenager and as I descended the steps of his office, a cheap rickety four storey tower relic from the 1982 Commonwealth Games, I gazed across at the four ancient landing barges that were making his fat cat shareholders a tidy $6 million profit a year. The fat cats, a combo of accountants and lawyers whom I met later in life and got on well with, were "sweating the assets".

Sweating the assets is a fairly common beancounter strategy, of maximising dividends, but deliberately failing to refleet, never mind the discomfort of travelling passengers. This was the same strategy as Alan Joyce with Qantas, in case you wanted some revelation as to why Qantas service, reliability, ratings and attitude all tanked. Joyce took it over as number two airline in the world, but by the time the company finally woke up to him, it was number twenty-three, with an ancient fleet and costly to replace.

GF amused the marine industry by buying cheap old Nato landing craft and sneaking them through Queensland survey, which was a self-regulating system at the time. He purchased unused, ex-military azimuthing drives and stuck them in multiple units on the back of his 74m smooth water landing barges. Despite his lack of marine engineering knowledge, they ticked the box of being cheap and protecting the sweet dividend! These drives shuddered and shook themselves free of the hull and over a short period of time littered the bottom of Moreton Bay. Their corroding remains are probably still snagging lines of local fishermen to this day.

What GF didn't know, was that I was a Scot who had repeatedly watched "Chariots of Fire" and "Braveheart" and I set out not only to fight, but to beat him.

Having done my homework, this Island trade at the time generated $20m in ferry revenue, this being 85% from passengers and cars,15% from trucks. GF's ancient landing barges were noisy, with a 6.5m climb up steep stairs to a 1950's ancient style café, with small high windows and Nescafe coffee. To ensure maximum discomfort, exhaust pipes placed either side of this miserable excuse for a café, added 10 decibels to the noise levels and produced extra vibrations for travellers to assist any weight watching efforts. These flat sided vessels allowed side waves to slap and send saltwater spray over the cars on deck. However, they were perfect for the truck market, particularly smelly garbage trucks.

Designing and tank testing our proposed ferry for the operation, was straightforward and would give us a vessel with relatively small engines, using only half the fuel of any of the GF barges on each crossing.

Funding the balance of the vessel build was a challenge, with a bank manager from the Queensland Bank quizzing me on my logic. "Let me get this right, you are planning to directly compete on this Stradbroke Island trade against an established monopoly with four vessels and zero debt, at the same ticket price?" I nodded a yes.