BILL O'LEARY IS A MARINER LIVING IN PHUKET

The O'Leary family crest depicts a sailing ship and a red lion under a sword with Gaelic 'Laidir is e lear righ' or "Strong is the King of the sea".


The ancestry is lived on with both Bill and elder brother John O'Leary choosing careers as boatmen. Bill in Thailand and John in Australia.

BILLO'S BOATING HISTORY

Bill enjoyed all things nautical from an early age. His Irish immigrant father, the famous Flying Doctor Tim O'Leary was a keen boater keeping a fishing dinghy at their holiday home on the canals at Rio Vista on Australia's Gold Coast.

As a teenager Bill loved the water - swimming competitively, board-surfing, fishing, diving and water-skiing.
Deciding life was more fun on boats, he acquired his first Queensland Marine Department speedboat license at age 18, a commercial Whitsundays Launch Master certificate at 23, a Queensland Marine Department Master Grade IV for the Whitsunday Area at 25, switched for a USL Code Master Class V ( un-restricted ) at 26, a Honduran 500 Ton license at 31 and a Thai Marine Department 200-ton Masters at 31.


  His personal boating adventures span 3 decades. He purchased a share in a 36-foot spotty-gum carval-planked cutter-rigged-ketch called "Garuda" back in 1982. It was a classic British racing green hull that was converted from a commercial mackerel trawler. It had maroon rags and looked great - but it sailed worse than a fridge door.
Regardless; he called it home and sailed Queensland's east coast as a drifting hippie vagabond finding work as a professional rugby league player and small boat skipper in the Whitsundays.



The famous 'Garuda' en-route to the Airlie Beach Fun Race in 1983

After mucking around skippering 'Tinnies' on Linderman Island, crewing alloy Cats and Wavepiercers to the Great Barrier Reef on Hamiton Island, day-sailing 'Banjo Patterson' and finally delivering the famous 'Stormvogel' from Australia to Phuket in 1987; he thought he knew a bit about boating.
How wrong he was!
He didn't know diddly-squat... and humbly accepts that he's still learning much about boats today. The technology is changing so fast - it's almost impossible to keep up.


After arriving in Phuket, Bill and Carolyn stayed on chartering 'Stormvogel' in the Andaman Sea to Phuket's first European guests. The waters around Phuket were deserted. In anchorages like Phi Phi, Similans, Krabi and Phang Nga Bay they were often the only vessels in the bays.
Bill discovered many of the now-famous tidal caves and sink-hole 'hongs' in Phang Nga Bay by paddling inside them on his surfboard in 1987; long before a single canoe had ever entered them.



'STORMVOGEL' and Billo are the same vintage - 1961. She stays close to his heart after carrying him to a new life of fun and adventure in Thailand in 1987.



Bill and Carolyn fell in love with Phuket ( who wouldn't ) jumping ship to work for Adrian Zecha at the famous Amanpuri late in 1988 - just after it opened. Bill still loves working there today as the Amanpuri 'Boat Guy'.

Amanpuri was the first and remains the flagship property of Amanresorts, famous for having created a brand of small intimate luxury resorts for the world's most wealthy and discerning travelers.



AMANPURI'S ED TUTTLE-DESIGNED POOL DECK
REMAINS ONE OF THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED SCENES IN THE KINGDOM

Adrian Zecha ( Bill's boss ) is without question, the most geographically literate hotelier in the world. His genius secured the singular penultimate beach location in Phuket for Amanpuri back in 1985.


Adrian Zecha and Jimmy Lombard the designer / builder of "AMANAIR II" - The first classic JAMES ANTHONY gentleman's runabout in Thailand

Bill has surveyed and detailed hundreds of miles of coastlines in Indonesia, Malaysia, Phillipines and both coasts of Thailand. He is one of the few people who really understand how brilliant Zecha's choice was to secure the only private beach headland location on Phuket where an Amanpuri could be built.

No coastal property in Thailand exists that could ever challenge Amanpuri's locale.

AMANPURI ENJOYS A PRIVATE, ALL-TIDE, SAND-ACCESS - WHITE-GRAIN SILICA BEACH - THERE ARE NO STINKY TIDAL CORAL BANKS, NO ROWS OF NOISY LONGTAILS, NO ANNOYING HAWKERS, NO PUBLIC BEACH ROADS TO CROSS AND NO WOBBLY PLASTIC SEGMENTED JETTIES TO NEGOTIATE.

JUST BRILLIANT WHITE SAND WITH GIN-CLEAR WATER 365 DAYS A YEAR.

AMANPURI'S BEACH IS THE RAREST GEM ON THE ENTIRE ANDAMAN SEA COASTLINE.





Billo with Anil Thadani and Adrian Zecha at Amanpuri Bay 2008.
This 'IMAGO 48' is called "CAVALLINO UNO" and belongs to Anil. It's 18 tons and travels at 48 knots!
It took Bill and Anil just 5 hours to deliver "Cavallino Uno" from Penang to Amanpuri.

This boat just shrunk the local charts!




AMANCRUISES

Amanpuri did not only secure the only beach worth developing for clients at the super luxury top end - It secured a luxury fleet of boats - incorporating this landmark decision with Amancruises birth in 1989.

During the setup and ongoing management of Amancruises, Asia's most exclusive motor-yacht charter company; Bill has operated, maintained, crewed and chartered more than seventy charter vessels and trained upwards of 120 Thai crew.

He would not have been able to achieve any of this without the support and professional technical assistance of his best friend Captain Jimmy Blee,

who has since moved down to Indonesia to operate his own ship-building and marine services company - Indonesian Marine Services. The one-stop shop for all things marine related in Indonesia.


CURRENT PROJECTS AND ONGOING CHALLENGES

Amancruises' current management fleet number 27 luxury motor yachts, 18 of which are for private charter - exclusive to guests staying at Amanpuri.
The 9 other vessels are privately owned and not for charter business.

Billo has 24 years daily-grind experience managing luxury marine tourism operations.
He can laugh at how he arrived in Phuket twenty years ago as a young bull, thinking he 'knew it all' and would 'teach' the locals a thing or two.
After making so many professional wrong-calls and mistakes, the arrogance of youth has slowly been replaced by the patience and courage that comes from years of real experience in any field.
Billo better understands his own limitations today going with gut instinct when it comes to boat operations and the crews working on them.


HISTORY OF PHUKET'S LUXURY YACHTING INDUSTRY

Andy Dowden, Vincent Tabateau, Jan Jacobs and Bill O'Leary kick-started Phuket's luxury Marine Tourism industry in the early 1990's.
They were known as the FAB FOUR.
Long before there were any marinas in Phuket, this group ( with Adrian Zecha's help ) incorporated Phuket Yacht Services who built a marine operations base at Laem Phrao near the Sarasin Bridge.

Phuket Yacht Services (PYS ) was the first and only purpose-built floating jetty and marine maintenance base in Thailand -- offering technical services to Amancruises, Thai Marine Leisure, East West Siam and assisting the first SUNSAIL bare-boat charter base in Asia.

PYS operated from 1989 - 1995 before the partners agreed to sell it to the Prataraprasit family who constructed The Yacht Haven marina on the same site.

Together with Andy, Vincent and Jan, Billo invested in Thai Marine Leisure Co. Ltd. and built charter and marine service centers at Laem Phrao, Bang Tao Beach and Rattanachai Shipyard in town.

TML were the first agents for marine hull insurance providers QBE and they oversaw the building of several commercial Thai vessels including Ed Tuttle's famous "Maha Bhetra" and converted "Rice Barges" for Bill Heinecke's Royal Garden Resorts in Bangkok in the mid 90's.

SAILING GUIDES TO THAILAND AND THE ANDAMAN SEA

TML provided all the technical information for the first sailing guides to Thailand - "Sail Thailand" first published in 1990. This publication had 4 editions.

Billo and Andy sold out from TML in 2000 but retained the rights for the sailing guide creating the first ANDAMAN SEA PILOT with friend Grenville Fordham and Image Asia in 2004. This year's ASP will be their 3rd edition.






FIBERGLASS BOAT BUILDING

Billo loves building boats!

Billo and long-time friend Tony Green started building STEPPA BOATS in 1990.



Billo and Tony onboard "Siamseas" a 36 foot Steppaboat recently built for Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui

The name "Steppa" is derived from Captain Stephen ( Steppa ) Marks a good friend who slaved away building the first designs for H20 Sportz and Phuket Water Taxi Co. Ltd back in 1990. Steppa's legacy lives on in Phuket with these fantastic fast versatile fiberglass boats.


STEPPA 36 Flybridge Design at the Similan Islands

From a small shed at the south end of Bang Tao beach to the Steppa Boats factory in Phuket Town, Billo and Tony have produced over 50 vessels for commercial and private pleasure use throughout Asia.
Billo's personal favorites for commercial charter work are the "STEPPA 36" flybridge monohull 'Plabin' ( Flying-fish in Thai ) designs and the "STEPPA CAT 3500" a composite closed cell foam flybridge cat.


STEPPA CAT 3500
During the tsunami Billo was on-board "Blowfish" - an original Steppa 36 with Anil Thadani and jumped the surge wave after 'hiding out' between Koh Yao Yai and Yao Noi as it hit the west coast.
From this experience Billo wrote the charity book Tsunami Stories Thailand - detailing 16 friends personal tales of survival - he's currently adapting it to screenplay.




Billo has extensive knowledge of the Andaman Sea area and remains available to answer any questions fellow boating enthusiasts may have for him.






BILL AND WIFE CAROLYN ENJOY LIFE AS GUESTS ON BOARD SUPERYACHT 'SENSES' AT THE TUAMUTOS TAHITI 2006

BILL'S FAVORITE BOAT IN AMANCRUISES?
- NO CONTEST -



THE 1931 CLASSIC - "MAID MARIAN II" SEEN HERE AFTER HER LATEST REFIT





THEN A CLOSE SECOND WOULD BE



"BLOWFISH" - Andaman Sea's most versatile vessel