Hi, I’m Deej.

Event Horizon is my 50th birthday present to myself for the enjoyment of my family and friends.

My journey to Event Horizon ownership began from the moment I could walk being brought up by a total boat-nut father. My earliest memories were pulling starter cords on old Seagull outboard motors and doing whatever chores I could to convince my dad to let me use anything he had that could float and had an engine. Any bet I would have with dad would always involve me negotiating fuel money as a reward for the winnings. I remember one bet where would get $10 fuel money for each side of a Rubic's Cube I could solve. A massive bet in those days because I'm sure dad never thought it would be done. I never learned to solve it of course (well, only one side...like everyone on the planet), but with the half of a mate on the school bus ended up with me getting enough petrol money to fund a an entire summer of fuel filled fun. Sweeping the factory floor at the Pilot 18 manufacturing shed (dad had the Hull manufacturing rights for Australia at the time) would usually result in more boat time.

Some of these floating vessels included simply dinghies, a home built hovercraft that tried to kill you every time you used it (but sure taught you about boat control...and future car drifting), and a wonderful Northshore 37 called ‘Bojangles’ that dad hand built on the block of land next door to our house which meant many years of fantastic Rottnest Island (Western Australia) time for our family and dads closest friends, usually at Majorie Bay. These were my very best childhood memories.

From the age of about seven (about the height needed to reach the old Morse throttle on the fly-bridge), I could control Bojangles in a way that left dad proud to show-off to his fellow boaty mates at the yacht club, and being the only sober one on board allot of the time, it usually resulted in my skippering most of the trip....or most certainly the trip home.

A short stint living in the UK in my early teens resulted in me volunteering on the Temple Lock located on the River Thames where I used to pride myself as being the local Ausi kid that could cram more boats into a single lock movement than the seasoned crusty residential lock keeper himself. A small 10 foot hand built timber boat called 'Temple Tender' with a 1.5HP Stuart Turner inboard was lovingly restored by dad and ended up being my teenage freedom machine. You would find me somewhere on the River Thames anywhere within 5 locks either side of Temple Mill Island where we lived.

Back in Australia as I entered adolescence, not knowing what I wanted to do in life, I left school early to work on the MV Vlamingh as a decky and helmsman during it’s daily trips between Mandurah and Pinjara. The money I saved from a young age enabled me to self-fund my pilots licence, the only thing (apart from boats) hat had really interested me.

My adult years took me away from boats. Apart from a few years of ski boat ownership, I have never owned what you would consider a ‘big boat’. Not through not wanting one of course, but just through the knowledge of the true cost of boat ownership and at a time when it was all about establishing a career for myself, compounding, and just getting ahead without the want for the financial burden.

This changed in the summer of 2017 at the age of 49 when a trip the Maldives with my family resulted in us spending a short amount of time on a local sight seeing dive boat. The sheer pleasure of being out on the water again, the smell of bilges that reminded me of Bojangles, the enjoyment the short trips gave my family, and all being at a stage in my life where I can tolerate the financial impact meant that it planted a seed which set in motion a change in the way our family enjoyed its leisure time. Time to so something financially indiscriminate and invest in family and friend time of my own in the hope to create the same memories that I had for for my own children, and the ultimate identification and ordering of the Event Horizon to be launched in time for my 50th birthday.

May your memories of your time on this boat be magical and life-long.