Rough and smooth of life on ocean wave

By CHRIS DANIELS and WAYNE THOMPSON

A boat built on the tears and heartache of the Young Doctors, Neighbours, Shortland Street and Prisoner dominates the Auckland waterfront.

Looking more like an ocean liner than a pleasure craft, Boadicea towers over other "superyachts" in the Viaduct Basin.

A kilometre - and a world - away sits the Alvei. The 80-year-old Scottish herring drifter was a working boat and a cargo vessel, and is home to a crew keen to taste a life of basic sailing.

The 80-year-old, 38m topsail schooner's dull brown steel hull is stubbled with rivets - quite unlike the lustrous, cheek-smooth hulls of her luxury berthmates at Oram's Marine shipyard.

She is worth a fraction of the $100 million four-storey, 72m motor yacht Boadicea, owned by Australian soap-and-game-show magnate Reg Grundy, now based in Bermuda.

Mr Grundy, said to be worth at least $850 million, was the man behind some of the biggest television shows of the 1980s and 1990s.

Neighbours, Prisoner, Young Doctors, Sale of the Century and Wheel of Fortune were all creations of his company.

Grundy executives helped to develop favourite local soap Shortland Street in the early 1990s.

Mr Grundy sold the television company to the British media group Pearsons for $467 million in 1995, although he still owns most of a recently floated network of Australian easy-listening radio stations.

A spokeswoman for Mr Grundy said he was not in Auckland but would not reveal any of his travel plans. She would not say when Boadicea would leave or why it was here.

Boadicea is resplendent with four decks, 10 suites, a swimming pool, satellite television facilities and a crew of 25.

She is expected to leave Viaduct Basin at the end of next week.

The crew of Alvei live a different life altogether.

Alvei's three rakish, pirate ship-like masts support 16 sails and 7km of rigging. There is no room for radar and communications antennas.

Blocks and tackles are used instead of winches, six crew are needed to raise the anchors, and sails are set and handled by a "sweat and tail" team.

There is not even ice for a sunset gin and tonic, because there is no refrigerator. In port, fresh meat and vegetables are a treat. At sea, it's a diet of dry stores and tinned food.

Cleaning and bathing are done with saltwater, and water is hand-pumped to taps. Going ashore to replenish provisions means rowing the heavy, wooden ship's boat.

A well-stocked library in the saloon beckons off-watch crew instead of an entertainment centre bristling with the latest electronic viewing and sound equipment.

Alvei has 18 bunks, including six cabins for two people.

Skipper Evan Logan rates the Alvei ahead of any $20 million floating palace of pampering and technology.

In six years' cruising, the ship has carried him and 250 novice crew from Portugal to far-flung shores of the Pacific.

Alvei means "one who goes everywhere." She was built as a Scottish herring drifter in 1920 and has served as a cargo vessel.

Captain Logan bought her in 1986 and he and volunteers spent eight years rebuilding the vessel as a main topsail schooner.

He plans to sail from Auckland down the east coast of the North Island to his favourite port, Nelson.

The ship is run as a private cooperative: people join to undertake voyages and contribute towards their food and lodgings.

One of the crew, 20-year-old Kate Oxley, joined the vessel in Brisbane 10 months ago.

The former seamstress is now the ship's steward, but she is also learning about the quirks of the main diesel engine - a 1954 two-cylinder Wichman.

"It's been good fun making sails, too - using a hammer to get the needle through the sail."

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