��һ�ǿ�����

A night at a��Whanganui��pub ended in four mates splitting the purchase of a 39ft crayfish boat together.��

The only problem was that the boat was a 55-hour voyage away in Dunedin.��

Brian “Smitty” Smith pitched the idea to his friends at the Commercial Hotel after spotting the vessel listed online for a low price.��

“I saw the boat on Trade Me so we go into the pub and everyone thought: ‘oh s*** that’s a good idea’,” he said.��

Aaron Littlefair hadn’t seen the boat before he decided to go in on it, but came around to the decision pretty easily: “After five or six jugs it changed.”��

The group travelled to Dunedin by car to test out the boat and decided its CAT V-8 engine and hull were in good, seaworthy condition.��

Smith and Jim Rison have boat-building experience so touching up the ex-crayfishing boat would not be an issue.��

Caius Weber (left) who joined the voyage and the four mates Brian Smith, Peter Olding, Aaron Littlefair and Jim Rison beside their new boat after arriving in Whanganui. Photo / Bevan Conley��

Cruising into clear, crisp skies in the Whanganui port upon their arrival, the four men were “pretty chuffed” with the purchase from their night out.��

“It’s all good - I just haven’t told my wife yet,” Rison said.��

But the 55-hour voyage back from Dunedin’s Port Chalmers took a fair amount of grit.��

There were bad northerlies on Sunday afternoon and “sharp, lumpy” conditions all the way through Cook Strait, Smith said.��

“It was sloppy. [The waves] were stacking them over the top of the wheelhouse, no trouble.”��

There was water in the berth, all the mattresses got soaked and they had to deal with a blocked toilet.��

“On a trip like that, you can’t just stop.”��

Littlefair said the voyage was “a marathon.��

“I’d never done anything like that before.”��

Smith said the crew didn’t lack experience.��

“I’ve taken boats over to Samoa and that, and I’ve commercial fished for 45 years so it’s just a bit of fun.”��

The cheap price of the boat was what drew Smith to it.��

“The guys in Dunedin said if they knew they could have got it for that price, we wouldn’t have been getting it.”��

The Trade Me steal is now docked in the harbour awaiting its first fishing outing with the group.��

Littlefair said they were knackered after the voyage and ready for some beers.��

Eva de Jong is a reporter for the Whanganui Chronicle covering health stories and general news. She began as a reporter in 2023.��

This article was originally posted on the NZ Herald .��