'You don't have time to be terrified' — how a former stage manager to the stars was rescued by Kinsale RNLI
Pete Currier, who had to call for help from Kinsale RNLI to stop his boat drifting back out to the Atlantic. Picture: Neil Michael
Accepting a ride in a small dingy the size of a bathtub from a man recently rescued by Kinsale RNLI might not seem a smart move.
But this reporter needn’t have worried.
After all, Pete Currier survived 18 hours in a force 8 storm in the middle of the Atlantic.
And the 68-year-old, who set off for Wales from Grenada in May, has survived many other storms since, despite having no engine, limited battery power, and sails that were falling apart.
Indeed, so much damage was done to them that he had to call for help from Kinsale RNLI when he got near the south-west coast to stop him drifting back out to the Atlantic.
The former rock music stage and lighting manager was originally going to head straight for Cork, where his three children Piers, Shia, and Cara from his first marriage live.
But, because he was told he couldn’t sail into Ireland due to the pandemic, he decided to head for Cardiff instead.
However, disaster struck just a few days into his trip when his engine oil levels started playing up and then the engine itself packed in.
A short while after, the battery that starts the main engine of the yacht Sea Symphony — the name of his
GoFundMe page to raise funds for repairs — packed up as well.
His 25 years of experience with sailing helped him to deal with the situation and he relied almost entirely on his sails.
He had always loved sailing but decided, after taking time off from a Michael Jackson tour when he was in his 40s to go sailing in Mexico, he would have a yacht of his own one day.
“He was a nice enough guy,” he says of his brief time working with Jackson.
“He used to call me his ‘English guy’.
“I didn’t have a lot of contact with him because he was usually on the stage and then off, and that is about as much as you saw of him.”
Some of his dealings with rock and music legends weren’t always so pleasant.
One, in particular, who shall remain nameless, was introduced to his new bodyguard and he instantly stepped forward and, Pete says, headbutted him.
“Well, he’s not very good at this job, is he,” the rock legend laughed. Then, one of the star’s entourage turned to Pete and said that he should look after the star.
“I said 'no way' and refused to work with him in that role,” he recalls, laughing at having been able to dodge it.
He has worked on tours and concerts by a variety of acts, including U2, UB40, the Rolling Stones, Wet Wet Wet, Prince, and Yes.
He even worked on Nirvana’s last tour.
“Kurt [Cobain] was a lovely guy, and he was clean,” he recalls of the grunge band’s lead singer who took his own life in 1994 at the age of 27.
“Everything was going really well.
“Then [a friend of his] turned up, and he overdosed and he had to go back to America and then he killed himself.”
On the rock and roll lifestyle which he has witnessed along the way, he admits living it for a while.
After all, there aren’t many people who can say they spent the night partying with American rock band the Black Crowes and “got kicked out of the dressing rooms at the Albert Hall at 10am the following morning”.
But it didn’t last long, and he stopped before he went too far down a path he has seen so many others slip.
“I just got sick of waking up in the morning feeling really rough,” he said.
“I was spending money to feel like shit.
“I like a nice pint of Guinness, and maybe the odd lager.
“But when you are at sea, you really need your wits about you.”
He says he left Grenada with 12 bottles of beer, and still has 10 of them.
“You just can’t tell what’s going to happen next when you are at sea,” he says.
He proceeds to talk about being stuck in a force 8 storm for 18 hours, one of the worst moments of his voyage.
“I was absolutely exhausted by the time it was finished,” he recalled, visibly shuddering at the memory of it.
“The boat was lurching up and down and rolling side to side.
“You don’t really have time to be terrified.
“Instead, you are just busy holding on and bracing yourself for the constant impact of the waves around you.
“At one time, I was up in the helm, and I tied myself into my seat there as the storm crashed around me.
“The waves were considerably higher than the boat.”
And he adds with a smile: “And I can tell you trying to go to the toilet in a force 8 is not a joke.
“When you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go. And let me say it was ugly.”
He was in the Atlantic Ocean when his engine and batteries failed, and that left him with a problem: he found it hard to move anywhere when the wind dropped.
Looking on the bright side of a situation most of us would be worried about, he says of his impressions of the Atlantic: “It looks like an oil painting that hasn’t been finished.
“You have the lovely blue sky, and then the sea.
“I kind of felt it was vague, and really strange, especially when it was flat calm.”
Over the course of one 18-day period, during which he just drifted because there would be days on end when there would be no wind, the only company he had was three whales and a small school of dolphins that stayed with him almost every day.
“They brightened up my day,” he said.
While he had music on his laptop, he rarely played it, preferring instead to sit on deck and play his flute.
“I think the dolphins quite liked the music,” he joked.
“There was a period for about 18 days when I didn’t see a soul, no boats, no planes overhead and I started thinking maybe Covid has mutated and the whole world has died.
“That was what I thought.
“I was getting messages from my son on my Garmin, I'm sure he would have told me.”
Despite his experience with sailing, he isn’t a huge fan of the jargon involved.
“There are two types of boats out there,” he says.
“You've got your snotty yachties, and you've got your budget boaties.
“I’m firmly one of those — the budget boaties.”
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