A dolt goes boating

Press, 3 October 1983, Page 18

A dolt goes boating

The disaster-prone dolt, Barry Boofly, will return to television on Wednesday evening in “Barry Goes Boating,” a programme about safety in small boats. Barry is played by Sean Duffy, who played Constable Dimp in “Mortimer’s Patch,” and has had other roles in New Zealand television and films. The character was first seen in “When You Need My Love,” a film credited with helping to change public attitudes towards child restraints in cars.

Now Barry has the boating bug, and he is out on the waters causing mayhem

... in the interests of water safety. The film’s director, Neil Roberts, says: “There’s no point in just lecturing people about safety. They switch off, and I don’t blame them.

“With 'Barry Goes Boating’ we’ve set out to amuse and entertain, although Barry’s absurd antics are spliced with loads of really good practical information about boat safety. “You see the dolt do it all wrong. But you also learn how to avoid Barry’s mistakes, from a variety of people who really know about boats and boat safety.” “Barry goes Boating” has been made for the New Zealand Water Safety Council. The council’s executive director, Mr Mike Frohlich, says: “With over 130 drownings since 1980 caused through boating accidents, there is an urgent need to educate the general boating public as to some of the basic safety considerations. For this reason the film deals with basics—it is a neglect of these considerations that cause most of these accidents.”

The showing of this film will herald the start of a campaign on boat safety.

Considerable research into small boat tragedies was undertaken before Neil Roberts and his team began taping. They attempted to build up a profile of the sort

of person likely to drown, and the situation he or she drowns in.

Roberts says: “A couple of things really stand out. One is that this is man’s disease. Most who die in small boat accidents are men, and when women do die, it’s almost always men who’ve been responsible, in the sense that they were the skipper, or the parent, or what-have-you. “The other thing that stands out is that people who drown in small boats tend to have blithely overestimated their ability to cope. They’ve misjudged the weather, the seaworthiness of their boat, how far they should have gone out, how much fuel they needed—and very often, they’ve misjudged their own boating ability. “Perhaps one of the big problems we have is that being an outdoor sort of country, every bloke likes to think he’s handy round boats. And small outboard craft, with their ease of purchase and operation, tend to make things seem easy. “You just put them in the water, and drive off.

“Well, at least that’s what Barry does. And he gets in all sorts of trouble.” “Barry Goes Boating” also features the comedy

writer, Grant Morris, in a small acting role, and was written, directed, produced ; and narrated by Neil Roberts. ’