Lifestyle assets aside, Day says he has no wider investments beyond Seaworks. Wearing the scar tissue from the fibre optic cable venture almost a decade ago, he’s no longer keen to have all his wealth tied up in a single business.

So, he’s actively working on doing himself out of a job.

After a recent three week heli-skiing holiday, he returned to work and, within a couple of hours, had cleared his desk of all necessary paperwork and had nothing to do.

His trusted senior staff are assuming more and more responsibility, turning the business into a more attractive proposition for a new owner than it would have been in the days when Day was the only one who could run Seaworks.

“It’s not The Bill Day Show anymore. Otherwise it’s not worth anything to anyone [else],” Day says.

“What limits the growth of an entrepreneurial company is the unwillingness to do yourself out of a job.”

Day is unsure what form the proposed sale might take but says: “I like the concept of leaving the management [but retaining] some ownership.” In an ideal world, he says, he’d like to be “the old prick on the board”.

The sale is still a couple of years away, but in preparation Day is getting in some solid practice in the ways of the cashed-up.

“I’m having quite a good life at the moment,” he says, as he prepares to head to Wanaka for a month of flying, diving, and mountain biking.

“It’s a whole new thing for me.”

He is continuing to learn Italian, acts as a consultant for fledgling businesses, and is on the boards of the Island Bay Marine Education Centre, Land Search and Rescue, and WaikatoLink, which invests government money in early stage commercialisation projects at some New Zealand universities.

And he keeps enviably active with his various outdoor pursuits: diving, flying his chopper and amphibian plane, mountain biking, skiing, climbing mountains.

He climbed Aoraki/Mt Cook in December, and did Tititea/Mt Aspiring a couple of years earlier.

His spiritual home is Wellington’s Owhiro Bay on the surging South Coast. He bought a bach there as a student and he and Karen have raised their sons there, expanding and renovating as their fortunes improved. Two years ago they bought a base in Wanaka, and Day is increasingly drawn to the southern playground to help him break the work habit.

Also around two years ago, Day took 50 mates to Antarctica for a month. They rode motorbikes over the sea ice, wave boarded in the Southern Ocean, and made a quick stop to try — once again — to find the holds of gold within the wreck of the General Grant. The General Grant sank near the Auckland Islands in 1866, taking a cargo of gold down with her, and regular attempts to retrieve the wreck’s stash are one of Day’s hobbies.

Will he start another company after he sells most or all of Seaworks?

“Shit no. Why would I do that?

“This could be the best 20 years of my life.”