Rod Findlay
The first of our 4 ambassadors is Rod Findlay.
Rod is incredibly respected across the Australian fishing community. He recently sold his centre console ‘Murriweeni’ and bought a brand new Grady-White 228 Seafarer.
Rod was born into boating. From a young age Rod’s parents had him out on the Hawksbery most weekends on boats his Dad built himself.
At just 7 years old, Rod joined the Broken Bay Game Fishing Club and next year will be his 30th consecutive year as a member.
At 13 years old, together with his father Russel and brother Craig they started building Murrifin which was a 39foot Game Fishing boat they designed and built from scratch. Those in the game fishing community would know Murrifin for its long list of tournament records over the last 18 years.
Rod went to Cairns for his first season in 2003 to fish with Captain Billy Bilson on Viking 11. That year they caught 105 Black Marlin including 20 true giant’s that were estimated over 800lb
Rod has owned trailer boats since he was old enough to drive. The Grady-White 228 is the 6th trailer boat to be called Murriweeni and in his words is the best by a long margin.
We are excited and honoured to have Rod apart of the Short Marine / Grady-White family as his reputation is among the highest in the industry.
Come see Rod at the Sydney Boat Show 2-5th of August to chat about what to look for in a trailer boat and all things fishing.
Daniel Klein
Our second ambassador is Daniel Klein “Kleiny”.
Whilst a good friend of Ryan & Sam’s, Kleiny is incredibly respected in the fishing community and has been fishing off the East Coast of Australia for over 20 years, where he started fishing along side his father on various SGFC vessels out of Sydney. Kleiny has been working as a professional fisherman full time for the past 13 years with his expertise being in the Heavy Tackle Game Fishing up on the Great Barrier Reef chasing the 1000 pound plus Black Marlin, the worlds pinnacle of Game Fishing. Kleiny’s biggest fish being an incredible 1324 pound Black Marlin with many more over the 1000 pound mark. He has also worked as a crewman on charter boats in Hawaii, New Zealand and the whole east coast of Australia including guiding in Weipa and princess Charlotte bay for 6 seasons.
He has his own game fishing company ‘Pursuit of Giants Gamefishing’ where he charters big game boats in pursuit of giants for his clients…..which he continues to successfully achieve, and we had the chance to experience this on the GBR with him last season.
Kleiny is extremely experienced when it comes to anything boating. Over the years he has Captained, Crewed and un a wide variety of boats from production boats Cabo’s, Vikings and Riviera’s as well as the well renown Assegai and O’Brien custom game boats and is also a marine mechanic by trade and has his Master 5 and MED 1 certificates.
Among some of the impressive records and tournaments wins he has under his belt as a Crewman, and Captain include is Lizard Island (World’s best heavy tackle black marlin tournament), NSWGFC Port Stephens Interclub, Shoot-out and recently the Inaugural Grady-White Shootout.
His knowledge when it comes to game fishing, particularly off the east coast of Australia would be up there with the best in the industry, be sure to pop in to see us at the Sydney Boat Show this Friday – Saturday to pick his brain.
John Whitehead
Our third ambassador is John Whitehead. John has over 35 years’ experience in the boating industry and is extremely respected by everyone that knows him. John started out working on the slipway at Rushcutters Bay before taking a full-time role as Leading Deckhand and Watch Keeper on Game Fishing vessels between Sydney and Cairns. He then spent the next 20 years working as a Water Police Officer where he was awarded a NSW Police Medal for 20 years unblemished service. After that, John spent 8 years contracting to Eagle Yachts, Australian importer of American Bertram boats. Performed deliveries, sales and vessel sign off at Miami USA factory and worked Sydney, Sanctuary Cove & Mandurah Boat Shows over this period in sales capacity. During this time, delivered a Bertram 67′ from Sydney to Bay of Islands, New Zealand, and spent 3 months on a Bertram 51′ in Fiji instructing the new owner’s local crews, along with 1,000’s of miles on all models. He holds a Master 4 skippers certificate and also has his MED 1 Marine Engineer ticket. John has been a continuous member of the Sydney Game Fishing Club since 1972 and held a NSW Junior Record Black Marlin capture at age 13. There aren’t too many people in our industry with the amount and type of experience John has. He will be with us on our outside stand Friday – Sunday.
