Shane Harvey

Position: Leading hand

Way back when Glen and I used to be the boat boys we used to run our moorings out the side of the ship in the cutaway, tow them out in the work boat and then come back to the ship. We put a mooring out. Once the mooring was out by 4-5 kilometres one of the scientists remembered that he hadn’t turned on an instrument on top of the mooring. Glen and I got sent out in marginal conditions to turn on the instrument. About halfway, being in marginal and foggy conditions the bow was tending to lift quite a bit so Glen said, “if it does lift a lot can you just jump on the bow?” As the bow was lifting I did so, and Glen pulled the throttle at the same time. I was in mid-air and came crashing back down on deck with no chance of the boat flipping in the first place. After almost dying the captain then called to tell us don’t worry about it. Such things are life as a seafarer.

I’ve been working at NIWA for 27 years – only one trip longer than the bosun. Before NIWA I worked on other fishing vessels and also on a dairy farm. As the leading hand I’m in charge of the opposite shift to the Bosun. I do everything Glen tells me to do and try and pass that onto my minions.