Barnacle Bill

Chris Despy is grizzled sailor with a white goatee and gold-rimmed glasses mostly perched upon a creased brow.  A Socratic sort, in another life he would have been a philosopher, but in this one he’s a Mr Fixit of epic proportions. It has allowed Despy to pay the bills and live a full life. He’s owned Barnacle Bill for a decade, a shop for yachtsmen and other interesting people. It could be called The Old Curiosity Shop, tucked away in an yellow building on the Victoria Embankment at street level. It is diagonally opposite the entrance to the yacht mole. Despy is a process control specialist who did a five-year apprenticeship at the old Iscor plant in Newcastle. He was part of the teams that established steel and fuel plants at Secunda and Sasolburg where gained a wealth of experience in process engineering and complex systems of sensors, transmitters and calibrators. “My trade was putting things together and tracking them. “It was wonderful. It was the best training in the country at the time. “Economies are built on steel: all the bridges, the machines, without steel you wouldn’t have modern logistics or manufacturing.” While Despy was traipsing around industrial sites, his brother was minting it in the UK, selling computer games. Seduced by the allure of new things he became his brother’s man in South Africa, establishing a computer company in keeping with his analytical bent.That funded a wild motorcycling hobby that involved too many near misses. So he swapped land speed for racing hobie cats and that led to Barnacle Bill. “All the things I’ve learned in engineering and IT come together here,” he says, looking up from behind an industrial sewing machine.  Despy’s surrounded by all manner of machines and materials.  With the canvas, cables, ropes, ratchets, rods, hooks and fasteners, Barnacle Bill could probably build anything. “I’m a jack of all trades. If there’s money and it interests me, I’ll do it.” Get him on chrisdespy@telkomsa.net or on 0842087990