Boaties sailed in for party and to cast off their cares

On New Year's Eve, 1997, party-goers indulged themselves, the Scott Watson double-murder trial has heard. ALISON HORWOOD offers glimpses of that carefree time.


The jurors deciding the fate of murder accused Scott Watson will walk away from his long trial well-versed in boatie talk and with a privileged peek into the private lives of 1500 party-goers on that New Year's Eve, 1997.

The monotonous reports of boaties' movements on the morning Blenheim friends Olivia Hope and Ben Smart disappeared have been enlivened with flashes of humour as the court heard of a few unplanned movements.

Some people boat-hopped for a meal, a drink and a bed. One or two could not remember how they returned to their boats from the party at Furneaux Lodge in Endeavour Inlet, Marlborough Sounds.

A few got lost navigating their way back. Two revellers ended up in the tide after trying to step into the water taxi. Another went for a walk behind the lodge and fell down a bank into a creek.

A company director left his three young children asleep on his boat, joined the party and took a new-found female friend back on board for a wine. A male witness squirmed with embarrassment as he admitted he had spent the evening with a young woman, but could not remember her name.

In her opening address almost three weeks ago, crown prosecutor Nicola Crutchley reminded the jury that New Year was a time of indulgence.

"Of all occasions, New Year's Eve in particular is the best time for a person to indulge.

"Many people at the party had been drinking alcohol and some in large amounts," she said.

"Many were not wearing watches, indicating time was not important ... it was a time for holidaying and not responsibilities."

For most of the week, someone wandering into the double-murder trial in the High Court at Wellington might have thought they were in a marine inquiry. The jurors heard of high-sided keelers, square-rigged cutters, square sterns, gaff-rigging and, of course, one-masted sloops and two-masted ketches.

As the Crown puts yet another boatie into the witness box, the jurors have occasionally looked sleepy and the public gallery has thinned. But the idea is a process of elimination.

The Crown has said that Olivia Hope, aged 17, and Ben Smart, 21, disappeared about 4 am on New Year's Day after accepting a bed for the night on one of the boats in Endeavour Inlet.

A photograph taken at 7 pm on New Year's Eve and displayed for the jury shows there were 113 vessels moored, anchored and rafted. The court is expected to have heard from representatives of all those boats - except one.

A key question will be whether anyone extra came aboard that morning.

Some of the questions Miss Crutchley directs at boaties are:

Do you or did you own a boat in the New Year period of 1997?

What type of boat is it?

What time did you arrive at Furneaux Lodge?

Did you anchor, take up a mooring or raft to another boat?

What time did you spend ashore?

Where did you spend most of your time?

What time did you get back to your boat?

Did you stay up and socialise or go straight to bed?

Who was there when you got there? Who was there when you went to sleep?

Did any of those people go ashore again or go to another boat?

So who was there when you woke up?

Were there any extra people on the boat the next morning?

What time did you leave Furneaux and where did you go?

Were you shown by the police or did you see in the news media a drawing or sketch of a ketch?

During your time in the Marlborough Sounds did you see a boat that resembled that ketch?

Although most people both inside and outside the court now know the difference between a sloop and a ketch, not everyone at Furneaux Lodge that night was a keen boatie. Some simply chartered a boat or went along for the ride.

Like most witnesses, Christchurch student Duncan Anderson told the court he had not seen the ketch in the drawing that appeared in the media early in the inquiry.

But when cross-examined by defence counsel Bruce Davidson, he admitted he was not paying much attention.

And did he know what a ketch was before that summer? "No."