Mistletoe – Sailing Sunday

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Mistletoe – Sailing Sunday
photo ex Jason Prew

Jason snapped the photo above in August 2015 in Tauranga Harbour. Can not be a lot of ‘these’ down there so hopefully one of the woodys will be able to ID her.

Harold Kidd Update – 16/09/2015

Fred Mann built two 24 footers called MISTLETOE. The give away really is the narrow stern which betrays her early build. This is said to be MISTLETOE I which Fred built in late 1904, first race Auckland Anniversary Regatta January 1905. MISTLETOE II was built in 1914 and had very similar lines.
Frankly I am undecided which of the two this one is. Some authorities reckon she’s the 1904 boat, some the 1914. The APYMBA registration of MISTLETOE (sic) as I7 recorded her as being built in 1911, which merely shows how much confusion there has been since the second MISTLETOE was built.
Whichever one she is, she’s another survivor of Mann’s excellent design and craftsmanship.
I did most of my early keel yacht sailing on Lincoln Wood’s Harrison Butler-designed and Mann-built MEMORY and was regaled by Linc with Mann stories (as were most of Devonport’s young water rats he took as crew).

The  photo below was sent to me by Judith (Le Clerc) Wallath & is of a punt built in Whangarei for her brother Brian by their Dad, Godfrey Le Clerc.  The picture was taken at Onerahi with Limestone Island in the background. The punt was made out of a salvaged board that had borer and planks from a wooden case.  It was painted with tar from the gasworks but still leaked through the borer holes, and had a sail made from an ironing sheet, complete with iron-shaped scorch mark. Brian took it, against instructions, over to Limestone Island.  His Dad removed a plank from the bottom until there was a promise to behave.   Brian went on to become a champion P Class and Z Class sailor, and his sister (Judith) also sailed a P Class (on Hamilton Lake). Definitely a classic woody 🙂

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15 thoughts on “Mistletoe – Sailing Sunday”

  1. mistletoe was restored by me from a virtual derilect COST sixty dollars “many parts rebuilt with timber on hand>chain plates are cast iron from ketch seaward>mast alawsoniana tree most detail is from memory from long ago>saild single handed for six years and had much pleasure doing so>main boom was a damaged mast from charly hardman eighteen>ruder iilost twenty years earlier and turned up just in time>have since built a half size omateri>planked in six mil ply>slips along very quietly> regards peter w>

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  4. One of the Mistletoes was moored Okahu Bay over towards Hammerheads 1989-2001+?, very unloved, painted cream with a large boxy dog house and no mast (or maybe there was a stub mast?)

    Passed her most times we went out in the Emmy.

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  6. I can’t really comment on the date of the image as I didn’t take it and I’m not a local. However, in 2006 Geoff Hunt told me MISTLETOE was being rebuilt at Omokoroa for him.

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  7. I suspect this photograph was taken 2005 or earlier? There is no second harbour bridge, opened 2009. The Trinity Wharf Hotel under construction in the background opened in 2006. The boat in question looks very much like the “Mistletoe” myself and a local boatbuilder measured on the hard at Omokoroa several years back. From memory it measured 25ft plus on the waterline. Sold on Trademe to Coromandel. Where is “Mistletoe??” now?

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  8. Fred Mann built two 24 footers called MISTLETOE. The give away really is the narrow stern which betrays her early build. This is said to be MISTLETOE I which Fred built in late 1904, first race Auckland Anniversary Regatta January 1905. MISTLETOE II was built in 1914 and had very similar lines.
    Frankly I am undecided which of the two this one is. Some authorities reckon she’s the 1904 boat, some the 1914. The APYMBA registration of MISTLETOE (sic) as I7 recorded her as being built in 1911, which merely shows how much confusion there has been since the second MISTLETOE was built.
    Whichever one she is, she’s another survivor of Mann’s excellent design and craftsmanship.
    I did most of my early keel yacht sailing on Lincoln Wood’s Harrison Butler-designed and Mann-built MEMORY and was regaled by Linc with Mann stories (as were most of Devonport’s young water rats he took as crew).

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  10. Could be any mullet boat from 22ft through to 28ft. There’s no real sense of scale in the image.
    It could be the 24 footer MISTLETOE built by Fred Mann which is down that way but I don’t think she’s yet in this fine condition.

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