French Bay – Sailing Sunday

Posted on by

French Bay – Sailing Sunday

This photo c.1935 was sent to me by Roger Guthrie. The location is French Bay.
The rather chic young woman in the dinghy is Roger & Graham Guthrie’s mum – Mary, wife of Ivan Guthrie. At the time of the photo Mary (maiden name Marion Alexander) was not married so the ‘older’ women with the parasol could have been her chaperon. The young bloke rowing looks very capable of getting them ashore safely 😉

Now is that an Idle Along in the background & is the boat sailing below, one as well (its from the same day)?

Discover more from waitematawoodys.com #1 for classic wooden boat stories, info, advice & news - updated daily - 14+ million views

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

37 thoughts on “French Bay – Sailing Sunday”

  1. Re “Robin’s” comment (Sept.29 2014) about John Spencer’s Y88 – it cleaned up everything at the time. I remember the sail number well. From considerably astern! I now realise that with John Spencer involved it would have been a lot lighter (and better sailed) than the old clunker (Y11) of an earlier era that we were in. Later on I sailed in a cherub which was a very popular boat of his design I believe and experienced the difference between modern (then) hard chine plywood v. timber. Tom Clark’s “Infidel” (keeler) was another example of hard chine relatively lightweight racing machines. Being (carelessly) astern of “Infidel” in a small boat (a moulded ply zephyr class) as the big black racing thoroughbred powered up to windward was a once only experience resulting in an impromptu dunking off orakei wharf.. Carl Franicevic

    Like

  5. Interesting history. My brother and I owned Y11 in the early 1950’s. Named Lynette at that time but may have originally been Boomerang.. 28 foot mast 14 foot boom. Masthead kite. Not the easiest of boats to handle but, given the right conditions (stiff breeze) could go like the clappers! Was originally a Manukau boat but we sailed and raced her on the Waitemata. Racing usually at Pt Chevalier (good prizes!) Kept at Okahu Bay. Thanks, Carl

    Like

  6. That’s kind of you to say Alan.
    I just punched in Guthrie for a sneak preview and that looks great thanks !
    I sometimes push the random button to see things from the past that I had missed way back.
    Thanks Al

    Like

  7. Pam
    I already have a few more ace photos from Roger in the pipe-line.
    + click on ‘Guthrie Family’ in the ‘Popular Tags’ section & you will see a lot of Rogers photos, posted in the early days of ww.

    Like

  9. No worries from Mary……..She would be astounded to know her picture appeared after all these years and that it got so many comments going after a little dinghy trip in such an out of the way place.

    Like

  10. Yes I see, I smiled inside. I have not had time to read this yet.
    I was just thinking how very neat the blog has been bringing you all with so much information to the boat yard here. And I’m sure other folk are finding this also. We have lots of visitors through but still we have been very isolated in different ways.
    Thanks Alan

    Like

  11. Ok I guess I new that. The only reference I have had to her has been in your book Southern Breeze book, love it!!
    Thus the cheeky sand fly teeze …. Dont have too much trouble from the little critters in the workshop.
    We ought to go and see Aratu
    P

    Like

  12. By odd chance, there’s a photo of Flap Martinengo’s Jim Young keeler NAMU in the story two above. Flap called her NAMU because of the fondness he had for your 16 footer NAMU which he raced for several years as a young man.

    Like

  13. NAMU. It means “sandfly” in Maori. Very appropriate at Whangateau. Plus she’s been NAMU since 1922.

    Like

  17. Relax Pam. It probably is NAMU. It was ARATU (another very famous 16 footer) I saw at Rotoiti. Had a conscience about that all day and checked at home. I abase myself!
    Don’t let the sandflies bite!

    Like

  19. Perhaps this one is Nanu Nanu from out of space. 🙂
    George is here and he said the one at the boat yard is Ngamu with a G.
    He also said in Merves defense ” yeahhh welll mayyybe Merve had suggested it wasn’t Namu” as ol fellas do when they pondering over a thing.
    Pam

    Like

  20. hi ROGER, GRAHAM ,PRUE–and families!! YES, MARY (ex alexander)was a fine woman, mother,wife, friend of my mother–RUTH etc ,golfer plus! cheers from BRUCE TAKLE and family

    Like

  25. Wow this is good stuff thank-you Robin. Harold. ( actually I wondered how you were going to sort out my confused state : )
    Thank-you for simplifying the class boats previous to 1945 in the list, I shall print this lot out.
    I’m not sure why I strayed here as I ought to have known the 14 being a round bilge was likely to be a t class.
    I do have a copy of little ships. I shall drag it out and refresh myself.
    I feel certain we have an S – Namu and T.
    We need to figure out their rigs and I guess their little deck arrangements and combings etc.
    And yeah it would be neat to drag a Y class out from some where.
    I had a little Hartley 12 ft trailer sailor Little nomad. My sister and I would sail in the Mangawhai harbour and it was her job to look after the jib.
    Goldie looks like a fun yacht put together very nicely. I hope the guys had sun screen on but I bet they didn’t.
    You gave me some homework Robin, I’m sorry I haven’t followed through yet but I shall of coarse.
    Pam

    Like

  26. Auckland Centreboard Classes up to 1945

    Frostbite class 11ft 6in Restricted dinghy class
    H-class 26-foot and over Restricted Tuck Stern Mullet boats
    I-Class 24-foot Restricted Tuck Stern Mullet boats
    L-Class 22-foot Restricted Tuck Stern Mullet boats
    M-class 18-foot RNZYS Restricted Patiki class (unballasted)
    N-class up to 20-ft Restricted Tuck Stern Mullet boats
    O-class Others Odds N sods, usually modified mullet boats, square bilge mullet boat types
    S-Class 16-foot and under Round or Square bilge types, open or half-decked (incl ballasted 14’s)
    Silver Fern class 12-foot Restricted
    T-class 14-foot round bilge, max 250 sq ft of sail – unballasted
    V-class 18-foot any type of construction. open or half-decked 400 sq ft sail maximum.
    W-class Wakatere Restricted class (replaced by the Frostbite)
    X-class 14-foot restricted class (also known as Rona-Jellicoe class) unballasted
    Y-class 14-foot Square bilge max 250 sq ft of sail – Unballasted
    Z-class 12ft 6in Restricted class, aka Takapuna One Design class

    Like

  27. Not sure about Goldie’s construction. I would have thought she was just big fat planks on frames, no ribs, much like the old square bilge 18-footers were. Many such boats were ‘home builds’ with all the variety that the term implies.

    See Little Ships (either edition) for the lines drawing of an Arch Logan 14-foot square bilge which while not Goldie, will be close enough for you to get an idea of hull shape and style.

    Not sure if Opah is still on display, (she’s probably labelled as a mullet boat any way ).

    The Y-class, like the A, B, C, D, E, F, O, S, T, and V classes were not really ‘classes’ as such, merely sets of rough parameters, usually just length, hull shape, and sail area, into which many different styles of yacht could be shoved for registration purposes. They were groupings for registration, not really classes at all.

    Those such as the H, I, L, M, N, X and Z, (and later K, P, R) had quite detailed sets of rules governing hull construction and sail area. Non-compliance resulted in sometimes expensive modifications to comply or registration in one of the less restricted classifications. Failed mullet boats usually ended up in the O-class just as failed X-class ended up in the T-class for 14-foot round bilge, sniffily referred to by Wilkie Wilkinson as ‘a class for second raters’. Failed M-class re-registered in the V-class.

    The Y-class was “up to 14-foot Square bilge” so pretty much anything square bilge, under 14-feet went in there that wasn’t a Zeddie. Hence the 11ft 6in Idle Along Romance jnr going there too.

    I don’t think we were influenced by cat boats all that much because apart from the Zeddie, we tended to bang a bowsprit and jib on the hull to give a bit more balance (and keep the crew occupied 😉 ). Most Auckland centreboard yachts of the time, 14, 16 and 18-footers, looked much like Goldie with the mast well forward and a bowsprit. The main exception to this being Arch Logan’s stem-headed M-class which evolved from the Restricted Patikis of 1898 and in turn the English and American half-raters of the 1890’s. The stem-headed Silver Ferns were designed as baby M’s and intended as a stepping stone into the bigger boat.

    Like

  28. Pam ALL Y Class were square bilge; the round bilge 14 footers were in the T Class (unless they were X Class!)

    Like

  30. Robin
    So Opah would be carvel built, planks and ribs? Were they terribly bluff at the bow? We have a 14 footer in storage that yeah had the cabin built on her and motor installed. Rather crucial to identifying her, but I forget now if she had the mast step still in her, I think it did and that’s why we have felt it possibly a class boat. ( I need to drag out some photos we have of her as she is up at the farm) Would Opah be a tipicle example of the style for that day and help us identify the one we have in storage.?
    The mast in Goldie seems to be placed well forward. Like a cat boat would be. Were we influenced by cat boats.
    How would Goldie’s planking appear?
    I would hope Opah is still on display.
    Pam

    Like

  31. Opah is/was in the Maritime Museum but that is the only one I know of that 1930’s vintage but as I have 365 (!!) 14-foot Y-class on my database, it would not surprise me if there are others around.

    Many were hard chine cruising day-boats of all shapes. They were ridiculously heavy (by comparison to what came along in the late 1940’s and the ply creations of the 1950’s) but could have survived for years as little runabouts and such like.

    The only restrictions on the Y-class were no more 14-foot OA, square bilge and 250 sq feet of sail so there was plenty of room to build light if you wanted to, which is where the racing Y’s went until rendered obsolete in the early 1950’s by advances in technology and design. Jack Brooke’s lake skimmers (see Little Ships) went into this class as did the extreme experimental types, little more than 14-foot Moths, that made an appearance in the late 1940’s.

    The first Auckland Idle Along, Romance Jnr in 1938, that Harold mentioned above did register as Y-class but she was the only one. Post-War as more IA’s were built, the Auckland Yacht and Motor Boat Assn, which really did not want to see the creation of any more centreboard yacht classes, particularly any that might weaken its Z-class, came under pressure and reluctantly allowed the Idle Along to register as a separate class. Because they still had five (5) 24-foot I-class mullet boats on their books, only one of which was raced, they gave the Idle Alongs “IA” as their insignia.

    The rest of New Zealand sighed and slapped their foreheads because everywhere else in the country, where there were upwards of 150 Idle Alongs registered, they were known as “I-class”.

    Last interesting note about the Y-class. One of the last Y-class to be registered was John Spencer’s 1953 plywood hard-chine International 14 known as Bete Noir, later Black Betty, and then Betty, which was registered as Y-88. In 1958 he designed the Javelin.

    Like

  33. Y-51 is probably Goldie built by Morris Hurfitt in 1932. She was on the Manukau 1934/36+.

    The Star (probably blue) almost certainly refers to her parent club, the Manukau Yacht and Motorboat club, which had a burgee of a blue star on red background, and distinguished the “yacht club” boats from those of the Manukau Cruising Club.

    The latter was formed in an acrimonious breakaway from the MYMBC in 1923. For some time the two clubs were not on speaking terms although by the mid 1930’s there was some degree of co-operation as to fixtures and the like. As the senior of the two clubs, the MYMBC could always put on a bit of swank (such as stars on their sails). By the late 1930’s the star insignia had all but vanished, possibly due to it being used by the Silver Ferns from 1936/37.

    Like

  34. The good looking guy has his capable hands in the way so I can’t see if there is a chine riseing forward on that day sailor. No splash boards.Carrys a lot of sail as an IA would.
    I would like to be aboard the Y class she’s hooting along but pushing a lot of water. An IA would be sitting up and out of the water.
    Pam

    Like

  35. I’m not at all sure the light-coloured square bilge yacht in the top picture is an Idle Along. The first IA in Auckland was ROMANCE JNR built by Sam Ford for his nephew Len Hodgkiinson in 1937 ans she sailed on the Waitemata. It’s true that for a brief period IA’s raced with the Y Class on the Waitemata but I don’t reckon this is an IA but a 14 footer.
    The bottom boat looks very much like OPAH which lived on the Manukau from 1937 onwards with the sail number Y1 but adopted Y51 in 1946. I sailed on her in the mid-fifties when she was owned by Trevor Elcoat and kept at Cornwallis. However, since this image is said to be c1935 I think it is the 14 footer Y51 called GOLDIE which arrived on the Manukau during 1934. The Star is typical of the insignia centreboarders were carrying in the 20s and 30s. Perhaps her owner, Hurfitt, also owned a BSA Gold Star? Lucky man.

    Like

  36. I Agree about the similarity of Passengers.The old albums are not well labelled.The notations indicate that the “lady with parasol” and rower may be from the Maltby Family.

    Like

  37. There looks to be a distinct facial resemblance between the two women; I’d guess the older one to be the mother (Aunt? Grandmother?). In that “post-flapper” era I don’t think young ladies were required to have a chaperone for a row round the bay in broad daylight.

    The boat in the lower picture certainly looks like and “idler”, though the various insignia on her sail are puzzling. The star was -from memory – the mark of the “Silver Fern”? I also have some idea (straight from the top of my head and without any proof at all) that Idle-Alongs in their early days sometimes raced in the Y class. Perhaps they may have done so on the Manukau?

    Regardless, if. as stated, the photos were taken on the same day, the two Idle-Alongs aren’t the same boat, unless someone slapped on a quick change of hull colour.

    Like

Leave a comment