General News
12 February, 2025
Comedian returns to North West to tell story of slide piracy case
Dave O'Neil flew back to Mount Isa to record a podcast about the mystery of a water slide.
Veteran Aussie comedian Dave O’Neil admits the Cloncurry Swimming Pool is an unlikely place to find him on a rainy Saturday afternoon.
But he is hoping to stoke the Cloncurry and Mount Isa rivalry with an upcoming podcast that tells the unbelievable true story of the Mount Isa water slide that was stolen by pirates in the Suez Canal.
O’Neil said he first heard the swashbuckling yarn during a trip to Mount Isa last year for a stand-up performance.
“I came to Mount Isa last year to perform a show, and we drove past the water slide at the pool and someone told us the water slide nearly didn’t make it to Mount Isa because it was all stolen by pirates,” he told North West Weekly.
“And I just thought ‘what are they talking about?’ It was an unbelievable story, and I didn’t really believe it.
“But when I got back to Melbourne, I kept thinking about this story and so I arranged a zoom meeting with (Mount Isa deputy mayor) Kim Coghlan to find out if there was any truth to it. It turns out that parts of the water slide were made in Turkey and when the boat was transporting it to Australia, the boat got stuck in the Suez Canal and parts of the water slide in open air containers were actually stolen by pirates.
“I thought this was just a great human-interest story and it really appealed to my sense of humour.”
Armed with a backpack and a microphone, O’Neil travelled to Mount Isa and Cloncurry on the weekend where he met with Cr Coghlan, Robbie Katter, former mayor Danielle Slade and Cloncurry mayor Greg Campbell to discuss the high seas theft as well as local water slide rivalry.
He said Mount Isa City Council staff admitted that in the planning process they had wanted the city’s water slide to be “bigger and better” than Cloncurry’s, which O’Neil saw as an opportunity to travel between the two cities and compare structures.
Speaking from the Cloncurry pool, Cr Campbell said the podcast was a good opportunity for both towns to have a bit of fun by playing up the rivalry.
“Our two towns are inextricably linked economically, socially and historically and if we can’t have a bit of fun when the rest of life is so serious, then we should just give the game away,” he said.
“Also, I just want to remind the people of Mount Isa that they are always invited to come check out the Cloncurry pool, which includes the best water slide in the west!”
O’Neil said he hoped the podcast would share his high regard for the unique characters that call the North West home.
“We are going to make it like a piss-take on all the true crime podcasts that are so massive,” he told North West Weekly.
“I will take the interviews I have done up here and will include some extra interviews, maybe with an expert on pirates and on shipping security and then we will put something out in a few months.
“Mount Isa is such a unique and unusual place, and I really like it here – I have been here a few times now and the people who live here are such great characters and they are very passionate about the city.
“I want that all to come across in the podcast.”
STOLEN SLIDE STILL A MYSTERY
Mystery still surrounds the exact series of events that led to a cargo ship carrying the Mount Isa water slide being hijacked by pirates somewhere in the Suez Canal.
Civil Engineering consultant Mark Miller, who oversaw the fateful shipment as project manager for the water slide construction, said he received a notice from a Turkish manufacturer in early 2024 explaining there would be a delivery delay due to piracy along the freight route.
“I have been in project management for more than 15 years and I have never had to deal with something like this before,” he said.
“I immediately started making contact with them to find out what was happening and, sure enough, they said there had been pirates in the Suez Canal that had taken over the ship carrying the parts.”
Mr Miller said it was still not clear exactly what sections of the slide were taken by the pirates nor if any of the structure that sits in Mount Isa today survived the high seas hijack.
He said the water slide parts were expected to take 16 weeks to transport from Turkey to Australia, but this was extended to 24 weeks after the piracy incident led to a decision to have another boat move parts around the Horn of Africa before crossing the Indian Ocean.
“We were originally slated to complete the water slide before Easter, but it was all pushed out by a few weeks and it was completed in May,” he told North West Weekly.
“There are pirates that now have ownership of a water slide somewhere near Egypt courtesy of Mount Isa City Council.”
