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COASTAL CHARACTERS THE DANISH, DANISH SEINERS PART 2 BY BADEN PASCOE S o, we have young Aksel Larson on the Auckland waterfront keen to get into some serious fishing. He would have dearly loved to become part of the Misa brothers' crew on the Comet, but they already had a crew. Eventually, he came across another fisherman with a fairly new boat named Ava. This man was keen to get into fishing but had very little experience. His name was Joe Bravesro and he had a son named Bob who was equally as keen. This was Joe's second boat, the first one was the Dick Lang built Giorgina, now based in the South Island. For some reason Joe had Picton boat builder Jack Morgan build Ava for him and he was keen to make a name in Danish seining, so he thought he would employ Aksel to gain some knowledge. They steamed her north and around to the west coast and fished out of Onehunga, more than likely the first boat to ever seine on the west coast. The relationship simply did not work so Aksel went looking for another job. He was down at the viaduct one day just looking around, when he ran into Joe Cole, partner to George Howarth who owned Kia Ora fisheries. Joe, being the very streetwise man he was, could sense a winning relationship in employing Aksel, as he had a vacancy on one of his boats the Kina, skippered by Fred Hughes. Aksel and Fred got on like a house on fire and from what I have learnt, they taught each other a lot. Aksel states that Fred was one of the best fisherman and seamen he has ever worked with. Aksel named him "silent Fred", as when they were working few words would be exchanged during the day. Aksel can remember that the record for the least words in a working day was seven. When on shore Fred would have a few beers and you could not stop him talking. The next boat was the Sandra, Sanford's star trawler. She was originally built as a seiner by Percy Vos's boys and launched in 1948. She was converted to trawling after about six months service and she made their old steam trawlers look inefficient. Her skipper was Bill Morris, yet again another good fisherman and a sought after skipper. Aksel liked Sandra very much as a sea boat and said, "she was a dream to work on". Once again, they did a lot of west coast work. The exposed conditions were nothing new to Aksel pg b N p K after working in the cold North Sea. About this time Aksel's brother Svend arrived on the scene, he did not travel to New Zealand in comfort like his brother, he was a crew member on the Danish fishing boat Olympia and was responsible for her navigation during her voyage here. Once again, more about this vessel in issues 85 and 86. It was nice for Aksel to have another Dane out here and he felt like their plans were beginning to come true. Svend soon took up employment with the Delich and Yukich partnership who owned the Zora. Svend had had to leave his girlfriend behind and he missed her very much. I would imagine he was broken hearted and due to his poor English turned to Aksel for some verbal compassion. One day Joe Cole could see Svend and Aksel having a heart to heart con- versation with the appropriate body language. He eventually asked them what was wrong. They explained to Joe that they were trying to sort out a few words to go up to the bank and explain they wanted to loan some money for Svend's girlfriend's ticket to New Zealand. With that, Joe said, "Don't be silly boys, come down to my office and I will sort something out, how much do you want?" Joe wrote a cheque out for the total amount and said, "You go down and buy the ticket today and pay me back each pay day". Aksel and Svend could not believe this kind gesture and thought the world of Joe and performed any task he needed done. This was typical Joe Cole and this sort of thing was common when he could see good keen people. Aksel came back to work for Kia Ora Seafoods and the next boat he was on was the Kaiwaka. Aksel thinks she was trawling at this time. He was on her for only a few trips before transferring to the Kia Toa, skippered by Alan Whitfield. Kia Toa was only a little boat of 45 feet, but was always considered a good producer due to her skipper. Alan skippered Kia Toa for over twenty years and there was not too much he did not know about seining in the Hauraki Gulf. This again was a good partnership with skipper and crew and Aksel enjoyed his days on this boat. Jack Taylor tells a few stories about this combination of crew and boat. One of them is when they had to do a mercy dash to Great Barrier Island in foul weather to salvage one of the Kia Ora fleet. It was a very rough day and on some days Jack did not have the stomach for a rough sea. He felt bad so he made his way up to the fo'c'sle where the bunks were. In a short time Aksel came forward to make sure he was okay and Jack can remember Aksel tucking him in with spare blankets like a father would do to his young son. Eventually Aksel re-sat his tickets. By this time his English had improved and he was on the lookout for a skipper's position. Ned Nola owned the Adriatic, a pretty looking, well kept boat of about 48 feet. He wanted to come ashore, so Aksel got his first skippers position. With this boat he and his crew fished mainly around the Hauraki Gulf, as the Nolas owned a few fish shops and a constant supply of good quality fish was an essential part of their business. A few fill in trips were also done on Kainui as she had taken over Kina's fishing registration after she was wrecked. Fred Hughes was once again in charge and landing good catches. About this time the cray fishing gold rush in the Chatham Islands was starting to heat up and they needed as many boats down there as they could get. Not many skippers had the blue water experience and the Marine Department would only allow the man with the right ticket to skipper a boat down there. However, I understand that they would allow a skipper to make the voyage if he was part of a convoy controlled by a lead boat with a suitable skipper calling Aksel on the bow