"Tall Paul" Marrett

In Memoriam

The first time I met you, I thought you’d probably been a very accomplished athlete in your younger days. Tall and lean, you looked more like an Aussie Rules footballer than a sailor. In fact you later confided, during a little social drinking, that you’d played football for Port Adelaide and been a South Australian state representative.

Cast in that traditional Aussie mould, you were a likeable larrikin who’d grown up in the school of hard knocks, honing your survival skills both on and off the field. The more I sailed with you the more I came to realise what a damned fine yachtsman and a great seaman you were, capable of navigating your way around any land in Asia, or for that matter, the world.

Our first race together was the 1995 King’s Cup in, the first of many regattas we would win together. This was followed up by the Singapore Straits, a second on a count back in the Raja Muda and the inaugural tri-regatta series of the Raja Muda, Kings Cup and Singapore Straits in 1995/1996.

Without doubt our most exciting win together was in the Hong Kong to Macau Hainan Race sailed in serious cyclonic conditions where we were continually surfing down 4 metre waves at 20 knots. We covered 300 miles in 24 hours of boat speed in that 45 ft yacht.

It was in those survival conditions that your talents came to the fore. Always willing to go forward to pull down sails or to operate the mast area of the yacht and, being the true seaman, whisking down below to cast an eye over the charts to check our position. You were in the thick of it all because you just loved sailing.

If I remember correctly, we all needed a little steadying drink at the end of that one. And we all watched in amazement when you decided to dance between the moving bamboo poles at the traditional Chinese festivities at the prize giving in Hainan.

No one, least of all you, would claim that you were a saint. In fact, when a race was finished, you would punish yourself more than most. I well remember that first King’s Cup we sailed out of Nai Harn Beach back in 1995. You’d rented a motor bike and on the trip home to the crew quarters after some light amber fluid, you missed a turn in the road and careered off into the rough, where you lay all night.

Next morning you emerged from the scrub, battered bruised and bloodied. But despite our protestations that you sit out the day’s racing, you’d hear none of it and after some very rudimentary first aid aboard Millennium, you were ready to race and give it your all.

Tall Paul, you were greatly loved and will be sorely missed by all who knew you and were touched by your honesty, humour and, above all, your true friendship.

Asia will never be the same with your passing.
Ray Roberts and the rest of your sailing mates.

AsianYachting would like to pass on condolence's to the Marrett family and friends. He is dearly missed!

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