School leaver saves house deposit by working on deep-sea fishing boats

Telisha Dishington is proof deep-sea fishing is not just for the blokes.

In four-and-a-half years out of school, she saved $NZ170,000 ($A161,182) doing the same double five-week shifts as teenager Ben Harwood of Christchurch, but on a different Talley’s boat working out of Nelson.

And, not surprisingly, she also had a house in her sights, but she was able to spend a massive $NZ770,000 on a five-bedroom, two-storey, 252 square-metre house in the south island of New Zealand two years ago.

 “I was going to buy a cheap house, but because I had saved so much I bought quite a nice house on nearly an acre in a really nice spot in town,” Dishington says.

But Dishington doesn’t bother supplementing her earnings with a second job during her five weeks off the boat after 10 weeks at sea. She likes to be free to enjoy other pastimes, including dirt bike riding. She has at times also gone hunting and fishing.

She does have flatmates, with the rent helping to pay the mortgage.

Dishington says she first thought about going fishing in her last year at school. “All the boys left school to go fishing, but most of them only did one trip. They didn’t last. I said, ‘when I leave school, I’m going to give fishing a go, too’ and I did. And I’m still out there.

“The time off is good, and the money is good.”

It wasn’t plain sailing at the start, however: “During the first trip I got really, really sick and I resigned about three weeks in. But they (the boss) ripped up my resignation. I got over the sickness and then it was OK.

“I have advised quite a few young people I know to do this. It’s a good way to save and get ahead in life. But I would say to anyone wanting to work on the boats, ‘don’t let the first trip put you off’. The first trip is always the worst. It’s quite a shock.”

Dishington works as a shift supervisor in the factory on the boat, and has relieved on two trips as factory manager. “As supervisor I run the factory (there are 15 people on each shift), making sure the fish go from one end to the other,” she says. “Mainly it is filleting the fish.

“At times it does get pretty rough. You’ve just got to hold on. I’ve been on the boats so long now I don’t worry. They know what they’re doing up there in the wheelhouse.”

When she finishes a long 12-hour shift on the boat, Dishington says she has a shower, eats, puts something on the TV and falls asleep. “Others stay up later, but I find that just makes you tired for the next shift.”

Dishington says there are now more women on the boat that when she started. “There are five women on each of the two shifts on the boat, including the factory manager and two supervisors. When I started there were just two or three on each shift.”

And she is not the only one in the family to work the fishing boats and earn enough to buy a house. Her sister has done the same thing, and has only stopped to have a family.

This story was first published by Stuff.co.nz