Help us achieve our fundraising goal this year of $15,000.

DEFLATED

There’s a saying: ‘what goes up, must come down’. I don’t think anyone ever used it in the context of a boat. Or in the context of dreams and aspirations. But on the back of the purchase of a club boat, we were all riding high. The members of the Auckland University Underwater Club that is. And on the first day of this year, that all came crashing down.

Grade Raider in her glory days.

We called her Grade Raider. Former club President Ming suggested the name. With a cheeky grin, he implied that our new club boat was going to rob all of our student members of their hard-earned grades, and he didn’t mind one bit. It’s a kooky name. But it suits a boat that would belong to this club; a club of misfit engineers in love with the gadgetry of scuba diving and marine science students in love with the ocean.

This is the story of a boat and a club in trouble. We knew when we purchased Grade Raider that she was going to require some work. We bought her under the hopeful premise that we would get a year of service from her before that work was required; a year in which to save up some precious funds towards replacing her aging pontoons. On New Year’s Day we rode out into the Hauraki Gulf, bathed in delicious sunlight, to dive around the Noises. We took some photos underwater, gathered some scallops and pondered whether life really did get any better than this. Riding high on our way back to the beach, we couldn’t know that the motorised vessel that carried our good mood was going to disintegrate before our very eyes.

The water that had gently caressed the pontoons of Grade Raider as we dived, turned monstrous murderer on the way home. Teasing away at a flap, wearing, pushing, pulling, relentless, tormenting the pontoons of Grade Raider, the sea wouldn’t give up. Finally she gave way. The glue ripped and one of Grade Raider’s pontoons deflated into a floppy, wasted wrinkle of white plastic. With it, our dreams of cheap, available diving deflated too. I’m fairly certain our club President Mike started crying on the inside. My own heart was crushed into a tiny ball of fragmented beating cells as I looked in distress upon Grade Raider’s withered flank.

Grade Raider in her sorry deflated state.

Every story needs a hero, and this one is no different. A dark knight has come to the rescue of the Auckland University Underwater Club, offering to loan us the substantial funds required to breathe life back into our treasured Grade Raider. Our hopes soared once more, as we delivered our ruptured boat to the surgeons who will repair her. But this is temporary relief. Now the truly hard work starts. We have twelve months in which to raise the cash to pay back our dark knight. Or all could be lost. You can help. Every dollar counts. Donate some money to the ‘Save Grade Raider’ fund and you will be helping out all of the members of the Auckland University Underwater Club. Our members have a vision: to be able to afford to participate in those joyous and rewarding sports that are scuba diving and freediving. Please help make our dreams come true.

Ali Perkins
Grants Officer 2010
Email the Grants Officer.