If Captain Sean Bolt ever writes a book, he reckons he will call it "Accidental CEO".
For he never really had a career plan; rather paths opened up for him, which led to a fascinating career in the maritime industry.
Capt Bolt (64) retired yesterday as general manager marine at Port Otago, after six years in the role where he oversaw a team of 42.
He had mixed emotions about leaving, saying he was not entirely cutting ties with the port as he would continue to do some work.
But, for the past 20 years, he had lived on the end of a telephone 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and the transition away from that was going to be quite strange.
He had been looking forward to spending the summer surfing — one of his favourite pastimes — and then thinking about "where to next". But a hip operation was pending so the warmer months might just be spent reading books.
Capt Bolt has had extensive experience at both governance and management levels in the maritime industry, and dealt with government at regional, national and international level.
The industry now was "totally different" to when he first went to sea in 1976. Back then, there was hand steering, magnetic compasses, paper charges and a sextant for navigating.
Now, everything was electronic and ships were being monitored by people ashore. There was also a very small amount of time spent in ports.
If he was a young person today, he reckoned he probably would not go to sea, just because it had changed so much.
As a young boy growing up in Auckland, Capt Bolt did not have a set career in mind. Probably the only thing he wanted to do was sail a yacht around the world, he recalled.
Prior to first going to sea in 1976, he was cooking in a French restaurant in Auckland where he got a job aged 14 washing dishes.
He went to collect his pay one day and discovered the salad hand had not turned up and there were a large number of bookings.
The boss asked if he could stay and have a crack at making salads, a job he ended up doing full-time. He tried to go to university but, at that stage, did not know what he wanted to do.
One Friday night, again when he went to collect his pay, he found one of the two chefs had not turned up and there were about 120 people booked in. So he found himself behind the grill.
He working alongside a man who had been at sea and suggested the teenager do the same, but that he needed to be an officer rather than working on the deck.
Across the road from the restaurant was the Union Steamship Company and so he wandered over and discovered officer cadets were being accepted.
As they say, the rest was history and Capt Bolt said he had no regrets about what had been an interesting life, spent either in ships or ports.
"To be honest, I can’t think of myself doing it differently. Every day is ... different. I know it sounds a bit trite. Things change all the time," he said.
Ships were "amazing things" and every ship that came into port meant that someone, somewhere in the world, was taking a commercial risk.
While many people did not think much further than ships "come and go", there was "a whole world out there" that most people were unaware of.
And when it came to making decisions about ports, it was important to think long-term. Ports were an "economic engine" — Port Otago employed more than 300 people directly and many more indirectly.
Much work went into running ports to ensure those ships did come and go, and a lot of legislation needed to be followed.
He had met some very interesting people, particularly at sea, some of whom, he reckoned, would not survive ashore.
It was the only job, apart from the armed forces, that you could walk up the gangway of a ship with only the clothes on your back and be fed, clothed and paid. That was quite comforting for many people, he said.
Capt Bolt did eventually complete university studies, gaining a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy and economics.
An enthusiastic sky-diver — he has completed more than 500 jumps — he used to teach students while he was at university.
As a student, Capt Bolt was arrested for protesting against nuclear-powered ships, but was let off after reeling off the rules under which he was supposedly under arrest for.
Later, when working in Western Australia, he was one of two pilots appointed to deal with nuclear-powered ships that needed a point of refuge if there was a nuclear incident.
That was something which was "quite hush-hush" — local people did not know the ports that had been identified and he remembered struggling with the concept.
It was against everything he stood for but he ended up agreeing to do it, saying if someone was hurt, then you stopped and helped them rather than driving past.
If a nuclear-powered ship could not get into port, then "a whole lot of people’s lives" were at risk. But he did recognise the irony of it.
One of the more exciting experiences — or "more than exciting", as he recalled — was when he was on a ship loading sugar in Fiji in the late 1970s and it was stormed by the Fijian army/SAS.
The crew was caught up in a labour strike by the maritime unions and the Fijian government brought in "scab labour" which his crew refused to work with.
Black balaclava-clad men turned up in army trucks, which rumbled down the wharf — he spotted one with a machine gun — and opened fire on the ship with tear gas.
The crew went and hid; Capt Bolt was among those that locked the bridge and hid when two men turned up with axes and started to smash the bridge door down.
But then, the pair were told to leave them alone as the group were officers and would be needed to move the ship.
Other crew members were taken away and put in jail and Capt Bolt recalled having to go to court to bail them out.
Capt Bolt once spent three days with former prime minister John Key, and his entourage, flying around the Pacific, where a highlight was sitting with former All Blacks Michael Jones and the late Va’aiga Tuigamala. "I just never stopped laughing."
At the time, he was chief executive of Pacific Forum Line which was owned by 12 Pacific Island nations including New Zealand. It is now 100% owned by the government of Samoa.
One of the stranger things that happened during that tenure was when a ship ran aground on the reef in Apia.
While a salvage crew was organised to tow the badly damaged ship, it was stuck fast and many said that it would be impossible to remove.
The Mother Superior at a nearby Catholic convent, whom he had met, sent him a message saying the nuns were going to pray for the safety of the ship.
Early the next morning, Capt Bolt’s operations manager called him to say the ship had floated off the reef. The Mother Superior was duly thanked after what he described as "the most bizarre thing". It still had to be towed to Singapore where it cost about $US10 million to repair.
Among his various roles, Capt Bolt was also chief executive of C3, a company previously owned 50% by the Port of Tauranga and 50% by Asciano, and Port Marlborough.
It was during his time at Port Marlborough that he got to know former Port Otago chief executive Geoff Plunket.
Prior to moving to Dunedin, Capt Bolt was working in Australia. His elder daughter has a disability and was unlikely to get citizenship in Australia, so the decision was made to return to New Zealand.
Wary that he might not find a job at his age, he contacted Mr Plunket and asked if there were any jobs at Port Otago. It turned out the general manager marine position was available.
Capt Bolt had been "in and out" of the port at various times during his time at sea, including spending a Christmas Day there in the late 1970s.
He remembered walking to St Kilda and back, carrying his surfboard, for a festive surf, and the commute taking "forever".
Capt Bolt could not believe how quickly his tenure at Port Otago had gone. Like all jobs, it had its challenges and Covid-19 had been an interesting challenge.
Deemed an essential service, the port continued to work during lockdowns and he found it "surreal" driving through Dunedin and not seeing a single car on the road.
The Port Otago team did a "fantastic" job in keeping that supplies line open and he believed the port was in good heart.
There had been some quantum changes in the past few years in terms of health and safety, and reinvestment back into assets.
One highlight was travelling to France to buy a dredger and also having to find a heavy lift ship to bring it to New Zealand. His heart was in his mouth as it was unloaded.
Capt Bolt had some advice for anyone that did not like their job — go and do something else. He had always enjoyed his time in the industry.
Unsure of what he wanted to do, or where he wanted to live, he was also unsure about jumping on to directorships. Legislation changes, which made directors personally liable, was "quite scary".
But keen to use his experience on the sea, his name had been put forward as a potential director of Maritime New Zealand and he was waiting to hear the outcome.
In the meantime, his wife was quipping he had SIS — or Suddenly Irrelevant Syndrome. "The port will carry on; no-one’s irreplaceable," he said.
