Chapter Four

JOINING QANTAS

 

When their intake of new pilots arrived in Sydney Qantas couldn't do enough to make us feel welcome and at home. I was, however, very disappointed when told that I was going to be put on the Lockheed Electra aircraft flying cross-Tasman flights to New Zealand, and not the Boeing 707s travelling the world.

 

While on my exposure trip to Perth after I had completed my endorsement on the Electra, I was asked by the captain if I belonged to the pilot's union. When I answered 'no' he said that I had better join right away, as Qantas pilots were going on strike. Here I was, now ready for my first flight as a second officer, and I was told I was going on strike. Virtually no sooner had he said it than it became reality. Short-term jobs to earn money to live on were hard to find - especially if you mentioned that you were a Qantas pilot. I spent time, on what must have been the hottest day in the history of Sydney, at a brick works chipping rough edges off bricks. If I wanted a drink, which for me was all the time, then I had to get used to the taste of hot plastic-tainted water.

 

I took the option of a loan from the pilot's federation and boarded a cruise ship to New Zealand. Once again, no one wanted to employ a Qantas pilot, and as my mother was having a new holiday house built, I forced my services onto the builder until the strike had ended. I'm not sure of the moral issues, but the Qantas manager in Christchurch denied me any rebated fare to return to Sydney, and seemed to take pleasure in extracting the full fare from my meagre earnings as a builder's labourer.

 

Because the Electra services were infrequent, I would sometimes go for a month without flying. As I was a new second officer, the amount of actual flying of the aircraft was very limited and, to add insult to injury, there wasn't even a seat for me on the flight deck. Although against the rules of air navigation, Qantas forced the second officer to stand for take-off and landing, the best position being behind the flight engineer. The second officer was in a predicament, as the only solid object to hang onto was the engineer's seat, and woe behold you if he was bumped while he was adjusting the thrust levers, especially if he had white hair!

 

Now that I was living in Sydney the beauty of the harbour overwhelmed me, but my efforts to become part of a yacht crew were in vain. No worries, I thought, I'll look for a yacht that I can buy with no deposit. I thought the rent that I was paying for an apartment at the time would cover any yacht repayments, and there were seemingly no problems with living on board a boat in the harbour. I found what I thought was a perfect yacht, and as the brothers selling it were very keen to get it off their hands, they agreed to my plan. A contract was drawn up requiring that I pay the brothers a third of the sale price over the first year, and when I had acquired some collateral in the yacht, I would obtain finance and pay off the balance. If only we knew what the future held!

 

To increase my income I obtained a taxi driving licence, and worked the late shift in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. Even though I used the radio on the aircraft, I was too shy to use it in the taxi and I missed many lucrative jobs. I was just as happy cruising for my fares, with several of my female passengers taking up the offer of a trip on the harbour on Cathonna. I even had the telephone connected at the marina where I was berthed, which in turn gave me a very good social life.

 

An interesting period of sailing started when, in the middle of the night, customs officers raided the American yacht that was berthed adjacent to mine. I watched in awe as several characters dressed in black ferreted inside and out, until, seemingly triumphant, they left with a small package. The owner of the yacht had been sent some LSD from an acquaintance in America as payment for a debt, and in his hesitation as to what to do with this unwelcome gift he had hidden it under the floorboards. If he had really been interested in dealing in drugs I'm sure he wouldn't have flippantly concealed them in such a hiding place. For a brand new customs cadet or a sniffer dog, this would be the starting point of a search.

 

My new yacht Tic Tac was delivered from Mauritius in 1979, and after customs had carried out their inspection there were so many new holes in the timber it was as though it had been infested with giant borer. I was given an idea that there might be, as just before it was unloaded from the freighter I saw customs officers carrying battery operated drills disembarking onto the wharf with their sniffer dogs.

 

In due course the new owner of the LSD was charged, and a hearing was set for a later date. His passport was confiscated to prevent his leaving the country, but it was the opposite for the yacht. Its owner was given two weeks to arrange its departure from Australia, or it would be seized and sold to pay the exorbitant customs duty and fines. Customs were very ruthless in this field, so my neighbour virtually had to shanghai a crew to take the yacht to the closest foreign island, Noumea. Then he had to teach them to sail and navigate, as hand-held satellite navigation devices were then thirty years away in the future. He was not allowed to be on board his yacht to tutor the crew, as customs and the police thought that he might abscond, so all the training was carried out with him shouting from my yacht as my regular crew and I sailed alongside. For the duration of the lessons two dark vessels were always just visible in the distance. There was no way that this master criminal was going to escape, for a customs boat as well as a contingent from the water police always shadowed us.

 

When the day of the enforced departure arrived it was too rough for me to take my yacht out on the harbour, let alone out to sea. Customs policies allowed for no leeway, and the yacht was forced to depart, weather or no weather. Customs did, in a moment of weakness, allow my regular crew and I, as well as the owner of the departing vessel, to travel with them while they witnessed the departure for the records. The seas were pounding through the Sydney heads and the crew of the customs boat were too frightened to venture anywhere near the mountainous waves, but they still insisted that the yacht with its tender crew face the elements.

 

We were a sad bunch when we stepped off the customs boat back onto Cathonna later that night. None of us would have wanted to be on board that bucking bronco as it disappeared into the blowing spray. Luckily for the crew, it was to be a very short but exciting sailing experience, as early in the night a rope jammed up the mast, with the result that they abandoned sailing and had to continue under engine power to the nearest port. No, not to Noumea, but to the nearest yacht harbour on the New South Wales coast.

 

My friend the 'drug dealer' came to visit me the next morning with a plea for help. He was not allowed to leave Sydney but, worse than that, all he owned was now tied up at a jetty somewhere and the crew had jumped ship. He was in turmoil as to what to do, as he desperately needed a car so that he could find someone with experience to take over his yacht before the men in black did. I said that of course I would lend him my car. He worked for a large firm of yacht riggers, and a few days after his return I found several coils of wire and fittings on my aft deck. A small price for him to pay, but a great reward for me! I was elated, as now I could look as good as any yacht with my shiny new rigging. It was a pleasure to send my rusty scrap to the tip. In the end I was the only person to benefit from the whole saga, for the troubled uninsured yacht finished her days on a Pacific reef.

 

I would spend days on end working on Cathonna, and for the period of time when the engine was unserviceable I would, on a calm morning, jump into my dinghy and tow her out of the marina into Mosman Bay. Single-handed, I would sail around the harbour, as happy as any other sailor who had a brand new boat and the latest equipment. I would have to make doubly sure that I was back in Mosman Bay before the wind died down, as roadside service was not easy to come by on the harbour! In the evening when the water became like a millpond I would pick the time to tow Cathonna back to the marina, as our intended path crossed that of a passenger ferry.

 

Qantas hostesses were often unoccupied during the week and were frequently treated to my hospitality sailing around Sydney Harbour. I still remember the day I saw my only invited hostess guest walking down the marina with a large portly gentleman. She had met him on the ferry coming over, and during their conversation had invited him sailing. What could I say? Putting my personal desires aside, I welcomed him on board and soon realised why she had invited him. He was the manager of a passenger shipping line and was a great conversationalist, and at the end of the day I had the pleasure of inviting him back on board any time he chose.

 

He visited me the next day with some 'sweet and sour' information in the form of old photographs. They were of my yacht, Cathonna, racing as a cutter on Sydney Harbour. How splendid she looked in full sail, but as soon as I saw the dates on the photo I felt sick in the stomach. She was built in 1910, and had an engine fitted in 1912. I had been misled by the previous owners in their desperation to sell it, and the only thing saving me was that they had agreed to temporarily finance it. The yacht had been surveyed before I bought it, but there was no mention of any damage or dry rot. I had also been told that it was built in 1939, which made it pretty old. I was prepared to accept that, but not the problems that were showing up. A detailed inspection found that many of the structural timbers had dry rot, and it looked as though vast sums of money would be required to bring it back to a good seaworthy condition. I stopped any further repayments and the money went into preparing the yacht for sale. Age had really caught up with the old girl and she was going to need someone dedicated to repair and care for her, rather than have to party all night on the harbour with me. Her only value now was in her bottom, being six tonnes of lead.

 

A friend, a colourful Sydney lawyer whose unit overlooked the marina, offered me the use of his unit during the day to design a new pilot's navigational computer. I still stored the machinery at my father's house in Christchurch, and it was my intention to use my annual leave to both see my parents and make a run of my computers.

 

I had a month up my sleeve when I arrived in Christchurch, and as there was no rush to make the computers I paid my usual visit to my hostess friend and her family. After bringing me the cup of tea she insisted I have, she pushed a pram into the lounge and told me that she was no longer flying. My heart sunk, as I had no idea that she was married. Even worse, I had always been jealous of her boyfriend. Had he finally beaten me? As she explained why she was now a sole parent my brain went into overdrive, working out all sorts of scenarios on how not to let her slip away again. The building of my computers was put on the backburner, as far more important issues were now on my mind. I made my feelings clear to her, and returned to Sydney overjoyed that I had at last made some positive progress in securing a more meaningful relationship with her. My days off were now used visiting Christchurch, which was only a two-and-a-half hour flight away from Sydney.

 

Over the months we talked about the subject of marriage, and when she realised that I wouldn't take no for an answer a date was set. My future young son was about to be christened, and as I had used up all my leave I was able to get a roster clerk to change a couple of my flights around to give me the time off to attend this very important event.

 

On my return to Sydney, a friend who was a junior roster clerk greeted me in the arrivals hall with some very bad news. He was so upset by the actions of his colleagues that he had made a special trip to the airport to let me know of the strife I was in. A senior clerk had set me up, for as soon as I had left for Christchurch my roster was changed back to the original flights - with the result that I didn't report for a duty at the scheduled time. I was commanded to attend a hearing in the chief pilot's office, with a member from the pilot's federation present for support. After a long and frightening telling off, the chief pilot said to me as he swept his hand over his balding red hair, 'Second Officer Griffin, your usefulness in this company has dissolved.'

 

I was to be married the following week and at one fell swoop, for no fault of my own, I thought that I was about to lose my job. Shit! How was I going to explain this to my intended? It wouldn't be a pilot she was coming to live with but a night shift cab driver. I was forbidden to leave for my wedding in New Zealand until I had given the chief pilot a full report and had received his authority to go.

 

It was a very tense week, but the storm passed over and the short man, who might have looked familiar in jackboots, gave me a reprieve and let me fly out. This particular pilot was a very keen sailor, and I remember, years later, instructing the boat builder of Tic Tac to excessively strengthen the bow. My intention was that if this particular pilot and I were on a collision course on the harbour and I had the right of way, my laminated mahogany beauty would send him to the bottom, jackboots and all.

 

Upon my forthcoming marriage, as part of her dowry, I had to accept my wife's dog into the family. Not that it bothered me, but finding a house to rent when you have a dog as well is difficult. The estate agents didn't seem interested when I told them what a clean and tidy angel my wife was. Our early married life was the same for us as for most couples, although I had a ready-made family. I spent many of my days off driving a cab or doing surveying work to earn extra cash. We were asked if we would mind terminating the lease early on the house we were renting as the owners were coming back from overseas. The agents found us a new property, which we eventually purchased, my ex-wife still living there to this day amongst some of my unfinished projects.

 

Cathonna was now neglected, as the marina was no place to take a baby, so I would try and visit my yacht once a week to give her a stomach pump. Every time it rained a stomach pump was a requirement, and perhaps her excuse to have me visit!

 

While living on board I remember hearing strange whooshing noises one rainy night, and when putting my feet on the floor to stand up I was surprised with water nearly up to my knees. I had no electric pump, and the manual one worked with metal flapper valves. Not quite the right pump to use when the bilge water had small chips of wood from my renovation work floating on it! To make it more difficult to scoop them up, some pieces were saturated with mucky bilge water and floated just below the surface.

 

Putting your hands into bilge water is the worst experience of boating. Bilge water is a mixture of stagnant sea water, oil, a film of different coloured paints rainbowing on the surface, and a soup of food particles that gravity has pulled to the lowest part of the boat. These all seem to have been prepared for James Bond. Shaken but not stirred! Many times I completely emptied the bilge and cleaned it with degreaser until you could eat from it, but after one day out sailing it was back to its former stench. When my arm reached the stage that I could pump no more, I would make use of the break and pull the pump to pieces, removing any bits of wood before putting it back together with some sort of filter to keep the troublesome bits of wood out. But no matter what I did, they always found their way in again. Eventually, this time for the right market price, she was sold, with the previous owners bearing the financial loss. I never heard of her again.

 

I eventually was transferred from the Electra to the Boeing 707, but after a few months had to return to the Electra again, as I was the most junior pilot with an endorsement to fly it. To me, it was a very backward step and I asked Qantas if their insurance would cover me if I was standing for the take-offs and landings. Oh, what a can of worms I opened! The first idea of Qantas engineers was to put a harness on the flight deck door to secure the second officer, but that was abandoned due to safety issues. The next idea was to have the navigator sit in the passenger cabin for the take- off and landing and let the second officer have his seat. That wasn't at all acceptable to the navigators, as they claimed that they needed to be on the flight deck to have an accurate departure time, and they threatened strike action if that procedure was implemented.

 

In the end the solution was very simple. I was transferred back to the 707, and a new and very junior second officer, who was not game to speak his mind as I was, was forced to manage a juggling act at each take-off.