river at Mercer. So it was, that after several months of hard training, lots of practice and perseverance on behalf of Sir William, he had the satisfaction of seeing his crew win the Thompson Memorial on the Tamaki River. Rowing Administration bore the Stevenson mark. Auckland and Waitemata Committee's in his youth, the Auckland Rowing Assoc. in the late 50s and later Vice President and President of the NZ Rowing Assoc. All this, along with the assistance given many crews from clubs and colleges around the Province made Sir William one of the leading figures in the New Zealand rowing world. He held all three Champion Jackets, i.e. A Red Coat (indicating a National Champion); a Green Coat (having Coached a National Champion] and the Black NZ Representative Jacket. Jack also holds all three jackets, which is a NZ father/son record that still stands. The Fisherman Watersport was well and truly injected into the Stevenson veins for another favorite pursuit was that of fishing. A young William Stevenson started his fishing career playing eels in the local Albany creeks. Almost seven decades later he had fished all over the globe from the lakes of NZ, the tropics of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands to the freezing North Atlantic waters off Canada's New Brunswick and caught almost every game fish there is to catch. The mark of a true sportsmran was left on many a fin, when, having fought and won the battle with the greats of the ocean, they were tagged and released to freedom. Despite this he had several game fishing records to his credit. The most meritorious being the "Big Three". 55 While fishing off Cairns in October 1970 during a particularly good game fishing season, Sir William broke World Record of five years with a Black Marlin weighing in at 1,231½lb. A fitting tribute to a truly magnificent fish. Giant Bluefin (tuna) had always interested Sir William – he had taken big ones off New Foundland and the Bahamas but the quest for a 1,000lb tuna to go with the 1,000lb billfish was a hard one as there had been probably no more than to fifteen ever landed on rod and reel. However in 1975 at Carracut, New Brunswick, in the St Laurence estuary the search paid off. After the disappointment of losing the first giant, estimate around 1,200lb, while the wire was in the mates hand