Witness tells of change to Watson's yacht Blade

By Eugene Bingham

WELLINGTON - Self-steering gear for yachts was no use in the Marlborough Sounds, an Endeavour Inlet resident told the Scott Watson double-murder trial yesterday.

Dennis Graham Clarkson said he had removed self-steering equipment from his own yacht.

"It's only any good for open seas when the winds are steady - really it is only good for ocean passages," he told the High Court at Wellington.

The Crown alleges that Watson made key changes to his boat, Blade, in the days after young friends Olivia Hope and Ben Smart disappeared, including repainting it and removing a distinctive wind vane which forms part of the self-steering gear.

Mr Clarkson, who lives in a bach at an area of the inlet called the Pines, near Furneaux Lodge, said he had got to know Watson over several years, though he only ever knew his first name.

They would bump into each other at the Picton wharves when Mr Clarkson came to town to fetch supplies.

He told the court he saw Watson at Picton on December 16, 1997. The next time he saw Blade was in television news footage of police seizing it at Waikawa Bay on January 12, 1998.

The main thing he noticed in the television coverage was that the yacht's colour had changed.

"The cabin sides were blue when I saw it pulled out at Waikawa. When I saw it at Picton, the cabin sides were a deep red."

Under cross-examination, Mr Clarkson said he first got to know Watson soon after Watson had first launched Blade when he was still applying the finishing touches.

They would say "gidday" to each other, and Mr Clarkson would take an interest in Blade.

Earlier, a reveller at the lodge's New Year's celebrations said he left the party after getting into a fight over his girlfriend.

"I've had better days, actually," said Richard Dean Boyer, of Christchurch.

He and his girlfriend went ashore for the celebrations about 9.30 pm, but left within half an hour.

"I ended up in a fight. My girlfriend was dancing with some young guy, then he started touching her."

They returned to their boat and waited for friends to join them before motoring back to Waikawa Bay.

Mr Boyer's evidence was one of several accounts the jury heard of unruly behaviour.

Thomas Roderick McKay told how his 18-year-old daughter was struck in the back by a beer container.

He had dropped her and three friends at Furneaux, where they had planned to party and spend the night.

They returned early on a passenger vessel, however, after Mr McKay's daughter was hit by a beer rigger.

"Someone threw one of those and it hit her in the back. That just made her uncomfortable and they decided then they would make tracks for home," said Mr McKay.

Kenneth Frank Collings, of Upper Hutt, said he was with a group sharing a table with a lone man in the main bar of the lodge about 11.15 pm.

"He was talking to himself and other people within earshot and being quite abusive. He may have been upset by somebody during the evening and was having words, mainly to himself."

Another witness, Ole Anderson, of Lower Hutt, said he and his wife had spent some time kayaking around the boats moored off Furneaux Lodge about 4 pm on December 31.

During their sightseeing trip from the Pines area, they saw more than 60 boats.

Shown a drawing of a ketch sought by police early in the murder inquiry, Mr Anderson said he had not seen any boats like the vessel in the picture.

Asked if he would have noticed such a boat, he said: "Definitely."