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The boat was built
for Mr David Barnett, a surveyor by
trade, who went into the salvage
business, diving on shipwrecks in Papua
New Guinea and Indonesia.
In 1986, Martin Daly offered to buy the
boat after working on it for three years
as part of the diving crew.
He went into a partnership with Frank
Taylor, a wealthy adventurer, who had
been a fighter pilot in the Vietnam War
and an aviation legend. His new passion
was treasure hunting and they formed a
diving/salvage company in Indonesia.
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After an unsuccessful operation in
China, Martin moved more into commercial
diving operations. And he started
surfing the virtually unknown reefs of
the outer Indonesian islands. Eventually
Martin swapped his stock in the treasure
hunting company for Frank’s share in
the Rader. He also registered it under a
new name, the MV Indies Trader. The
diving business went well and Daly
cleared his debts by late 1990 and owned
the boat free and clear, a lifetime
ambition. He could now go exploring
whenever he wanted.
He started surfing remote islands of
Indonesia, after scoring a job salvaging
a crane that had fallen off a timber
barge. And he spent the next few weeks
exploring and surfing great waves.
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Back in Jakarta, Martin scored a
one-year service contract to provide
diving support for eight drilling rigs.
However, there were only four berths on
board and the contract specified eight,
so he cut the boat in half amidships and
added six feet, with original naval
architect Rick James doing all the
design work.
With his Indonesian partner, Martin also
refitted a crayboat in Fremantle,
Western Australia, with the idea of
doing dive charters to Indonesia,
"I figured that I could sneak off
and go surfing while the other guys were
diving," he said. Soon after a
friend chartered the boat for a surf
trip and the crew, unknown to Martin at
the time, included Tom Carroll, Martin
Potter and Ross Clarke-Jones. They
scored epic surf.
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After completing the rig support
contract, the Indies Trader starting
doing charters to the Mentawais. In
1996, the Indies Trader 2 arrived on the
scene. In October 1998, the Indies
Trader headed to the Pacific Ocean and
the Quiksilver Crossing project was
approved.
On February 13 1999, the vessel arrived
in Cairns, Australia, for the first time
in 27 years in preparation for the
greatest surf adventure of all time.
It set sail on the Quiksilver Crossing
on Saturday March 20 1999.
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