Jacob Petrik

Radar

Jacob was born in Prague in the Czech Republic and came to England with his girlfriend Iva. A car body paint sprayer by trade, when he came to England, Jacob became a chef - and a very good one to boot.

Jacob is a keen fisherman and can often be seen out on the rib off Ramsgate fishing with a dogged determination. Speaking of dogs, which we weren't really, I'll let you into a secret about Jacob. He' afraid of dog fish! Yep, that big burly man can't stand to touch dog fish. Which can be a problem is he catches lots of them. Someone else has to remove the hook and deal with the fish!

A fisherman since a boy, when he went course fishing with his grandad, Jacob holds the Stella Maris records for the most fish, the biggest fish, the strangest catch (nobody knows what it was, but we think it may have been some sort of spiny spider crab thing) and the first fish on most outings.

Jacob is the main Radar Operator on Stella Maris, but he is known among the crew as Spiderman because of an amazing jump he performed from the top of the rail of the focsle to the pontoon. A jump of about 15 feet in height! (maybe he was being chased by a dogfish!)

Stella Maris had a motley crew on deck when arriving a Ramsgate. There were two Jocks, three English, two Czechs and one Bosnian. There waiting for us at our berth were three Customs officials (how did they know we were coming???) We were having a slight problem getting alongside and the customs officers watched as crew ran up and down calling to one another in a myriad of accents. That's when Jacob performed his Spiderman stunt and jumped from shore. The look on the faces of the Customs officers - I'm sure they were convinced it was a boat load of illegal immigrants making a break for it. When they came on board, they were very nice, but after Jacob raising their suspicions, I was expecting the rubber gloves to come out!