Vulcan (again)
More photos have surfaced ex Harold Kidd.
Your Harbour Master Nazi’s would have a fieldday if they were around back then, on my count – 16 people & not a PFD insight.
The yacht in the background (H16) is the 26ft mullet boat KOTARE, built by A.K. Butterworth at Manurewa in 1920. She spent a season on the Manukau but was on the Waitemata from October 1921.
I would also like to draw Mr Deeble’s attention to the fact that Vulcan was partaking in the very natty craze of sporting a fender at the ready while underway – a custom still practiced today by the traditionalists amongst us 😉
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Nappies were towed in my time (with indifferent results)
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Speaking of bags slung over the side -I mean bags containing things not sheilas- I remember two tales from my youth that I’d share. A mullety mate of the old man used to say they’d tow the spuds behind on a long trip and they’d be pealed nicely on arrival. Also if some frowsty clothes were towed behind in a sack, it’d freshen them up. I tried the spuds trick once and can’t verify it.
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Wait a sec, I’ll fire up my trusty time machine and zoom over and ask the guy in the cockpit. But seriously, she’s a generic tramtop of the period 1912 to 1930. We’ve long since lost the facility to be precise over which one, if only because most launches of this type had a series of metamorphoses from flushdecker to flushdecker with dodger to flushdecker with dodger with clerestory (tramtop) and often to bridgedecker.
When forwarding the image to Alan I relied on the provenance I was given and didn’t question it until eagle-eye Murray looked at it more analytically than I had done.
At least KOTARE is right because, conveniently, she’s wearing her number. I would hate to guess which mullet boat she was without that, especially since she’s one of the more obscure big mulletties.
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So Gents – what is it then?
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Gee, that Murray Deeble has an eagle eye! He’s right, the top pic is not VULCAN. Count the clerestory windows, one has 5, one has 6, then the ports in the coamings are different, 2 on one and 3 on the other. I suspect that she’s a couple of feet longer too.
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Even more spring to the sheer…..
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Are you gents sure the top pic boat is Vulcan? Cabin changed and looks somewhat larger and broader in the stern.
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Sorry gents, you are all wrong. Its a burley bag. The Lads were heading out for a weekend fishing.
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I have it on good authority that Rowland Vowles was not towing a fender, but marinating a salami, which is totally seamanlike and Bristol fashion, as is streaming a log.
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Have in profusion, by all means. But don’t trail when you are underway! Untidy. Remember to hoist your ensign at 0800 and lower at sunset -the senior officer in the bay will fire the gun. The reckoning was, by some, that you could leave the burgee flying for the cruise…. Ahem! I digress, sorry.
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That man standing in the anchor hatch could be my grandfather Charlie Pascoe
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Fenders Oh! Fenders – to have or not to have, that is the question ?
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Nah, mate. Not getting your fenders in when under way is just sloppy seamanship. No excuse whatever. The traditionalists (not a new group by any means) have always despised poor habits (and bow thrusters) as being just signs of the new boys on the block.
Regarding the naughty people enjoying themselves on deck: My reckoning is 16 bods at $300 a head = $4800(that is what the first sinners were fined in Napier) is a good collection for the local coffers. We might even see the police stop issuing parking and speeding tickets and hop down to the waterfront for a spell!
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