City Beat: Ian Skippen’s emergency heart surgery

A still-living legend of Brisbane radio has vowed to get back to business as usual after a health scare stopped him in his tracks.

All the latest news and gossip from Brisbane’s business movers and shakers – this is City Beat...

DODGING A BULLET

Brisbane media identity Ian Skippen has narrowly dodged a bullet.

The one-time fixture on breakfast radio is recovering at home after undergoing an emergency medical procedure at the Prince Charles Hospital last week to fix a heart defect.

Skippen had a stent inserted into what’s known as the “widow-maker’’, an infamous key artery in the heart that in his case was 90 per cent blocked.

The 70-year-old former brekky host on 4BC and ex-morning crew member at B105 realised something was amiss last Tuesday when he and a mate went for an early morning jog up Mt Coot-tha.

That exertion left him feeling a heaviness in his chest but, at first, he thought nothing of it.

Then a bout of breathlessness returned after he came home for a swim and a shower.

Brisbane radio identity Ian Skippen has suffered a health scare.

Soon enough he was at the hospital, where an angiogram revealed the extent of the damage and doctors concluded he had actually suffered a heart attack.

“I found this week that I’m not bulletproof,’’ Skippen told his Facebook followers in a lengthy post at the weekend.

“I feel no different to what I felt before my ‘episode’. I will rest up and now take some meds for the first time in my life.

“I won’t rush into tackling Mt Coot-tha again but I will ease back into my normal fitness regimen.

“I will also hope to wrap my laughing gear around a strawberry sundae at next year’s Ekka, because even if it’s not good for my cholesterol it is bloody good for the ongoing work of the legends and angels who work in our public health system at Prince Charles Hospital.’’

MARITIME UPS AND DOWNS

There’s good news and bad news in the Gold Coast marine sector.

On the upside, it’s emerged that industry legend Bill Barry-Cotter has overseen the makeover of a racing yacht that will take part in the Sydney-to-Hobart race.

His luxury boat building firm Maritimo spent the past six months re-engineering much of the 16.5m Swiftsure vessel, adding a new carbon fibre mast and boom, new sails and rigging.

The boat left for Sydney last week with Bill’s brother, Kendall, among the crew.

Meanwhile, we learned on Monday that another one of Queensland’s luxury yacht builders has gone bust after a dreadful year heavily impacted by the pandemic.

Marine Engineering Consultants Pty Ltd, trading as MEC Yachts, is now in the hands of court-appointed liquidator Chris Baskerville from insolvency mob Jirsch Sutherland.

Murray Owen

The demise of the company, operated by founder and sole director Murray Owen, follows a lengthy period of financial difficulties.

MEC settled a wind-up bid launched in June by an apprenticeship group but other alleged creditors piggybacked on to the legal action in an effort to get paid.

The company was also still fighting a separate court battle sparked by another alleged creditor late last year.

In a surprising twist, Baskerville told us that his team had been barred from entering MEC’s Coomera office on Monday and he was now seeking legal remedies to gain access to the site.

He could not provide details about how much is owing to more than 50 creditors.

Owen, who acknowledged earlier this year that a number of key contracts had been lost or put on hold, did not return a call seeking comment.

Launched in 1992, MEC was based at the Gold Coast City Marina and also had outposts in Brisbane and Mackay.

Just five years ago it built the $5.5m Evolution catamaran, a 33m long colossus that remains among the biggest commercial vessels ever made in the state.