Gone fishing to Phuket – 800 km away, in a small open boat

Life at Large, The Straits Times, November 14, 1995 By Lynn Seah

The open boat is given a final once-over before heading for Phuket to join a fishing contest.

Two small boats from Singapore are braving the stormy weather and 800 km of high seas this week, in hopes of reeling in a ship load of awards at the Phuket International Sportfishing Classic.

Mr. Stephen Seow and only one other crew member will make the voyage on one of two 5.7-m open boats he himself designed. Captain (NS) William James Francis will lead a full crew of four on the other. Both left for Phuket on Sunday.

Two cabin cruisers, one 11.4m and the other 13.5m, are also making the long journey there to compete. When a 13.2-m boat from Singapore made it last year, angling magazine SEA Fishing World described it as “an epic voyage”.

Although the crew encountered bad weather, floating debris and other hazards on the voyage, it still managed to win most of the major awards, including top team, top boat and top individual angler. Most competitors from places far from Phuket prefer to fly there, as are the other two crew members of Mr. Seow’s boat, and to rent a boat, however.

Making the trip on a small open boat is uncomfortable and tedious but not impossible, says Mr. Grant Pereira, 46, the International Game Fish Association’s Singapore representative.

The two small open boats designed by Mr. Seow are Albacore 280STs.

“Technically speaking, these boats can reach Phuket without refueling,” says the 62-year-old managing director of Dynaglass Reinforced Plastic, a fiberglass engineering company which makes boats as well as other products. The 280ST model has a 1,120-km range. However, the boats’ fuel-efficient qualities will not be put to the test for this trip. The leisurely itinerary includes lengthy stopovers – one night in Port Klang and two in Penang – for rest and refueling.

Mr. Seow is confident of the small boats’ ability to make the trip safely. They have self-draining holes. Should water get into the vessels, these can drain it away. Foam-filled buoyancy chambers will keep the boats afloat even when jagged rocks have knocked a hole in the hull.

If all goes according to plan, the boats will reach Phuket by tomorrow, in plenty of time for the competition which runs from Friday to next Monday. The annual Phuket International Sportfishing Classic used to be known as the Holiday Inn Phuket Sportfishing Classic. It aims to promote awareness of marine conservation and the protection of billfish such as the marlin.

Points are awarded for any billfish caught but competitors have to release them after measuring and photographing them. Mr Seow and Mr Pereira say the event is an up-and-coming angling competition in a region with few international-scale tournaments. Last year, more than 20 teams, some from as far as California, took part. Still, it is a relatively new event – only three years old – and has some way to go before matching the prestige of angling competitions held in other parts of the world, says Mr. Pereira. The most prestigious, held in Hawaii, is 39 years old.

Although some international competitions have rich prizes, most offer little more than trophies. So what attracts people to these occasions?

“It is to be the best of the best,” says Mr Pereira. “It appeals to the ego, to the hunter in them.”