IT was a developing sailboat delivery business, not even "googleable" yet, that was offered "a dream job"; skippering a 13-metre catamaran from Tahiti to Sydney for a roughly $30,000 payday.
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"It was the sort of thing that we were hoping we'd... well I guess I wasn't even imagining a trip as big as that would come through as one of my first inquiries," the experienced yacht master who ran the business told a cocaine importation trial in Newcastle District Court on Monday. "But yeah, right up my alley; sailing a big sailing catamaran a long distance. "It's like wow; this is like a dream job come through."
The experienced yacht master said he enlisted the help of his friend, Newcastle sailor and musician Craig Lembke, to help sail the catamaran from Tahiti to Toronto in 2017.
But the job was too good to be true and the catamaran, the Skarabej, was packed with 700 kilograms of cocaine, the property of a drug importation syndicate and the target of a multi-agency criminal investigation.
Police boarded the boat at Toronto on November 15, 2017, found the 700 bricks of cocaine on board and arrested Mr Lembke and two other men, who cannot be identified.
Mr Lembke, 49, has pleaded not guilty to importing a commercial quantity of cocaine, with his trial in Newcastle District Court focused on whether or not he knew the drugs were on board.
Under questioning from Crown prosecutor Rob Ranken, the yacht master told the jury on Monday that before setting off to collect the boat, his mother raised concerns with him about the possibility of drugs being on board.
"Drugs, guns, whatever," the yacht master said. "Any sort of thing that shouldn't be brought in, reptiles."
As a result of that conversation, he said he called Customs or Border Force and was told that provided he checked the boat over and "everything seemed in order" he had fulfilled his duty of care.
He told the jury that after boarding the Skarabej at a marina in Tahiti he checked to see if there was anything illegal on board.
"... I did look in everything that opens and shuts, you know, like I mean I was vaguely looking but I wasn't expecting to open a cupboard and go, you know," the yacht master said.
When Mr Ranken asked if he found anything "untoward" on the boat, the yacht master replied: "No. No, absolutely not."
As well as Mr Lembke, Western Australian man Daniel Percy is on trial accused of meeting Mr Lembke and the other experienced yacht master in Tahiti and facilitating the transfer of the Skarabej and its illicit cargo so it could be delivered to Australia.
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