Waitemata Woodys hits 4,000,000 views and celebrates with a gallery of over 100 classic wooden boat photos

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If you think being passionate about wooden boats is niche – think again, there are a lot of us out there. Waitemata Woodys has just passed 4 MILLION views and we celebrate with over 100 classic wooden boating photos

Never in a blue moon when I started this site could I have seen it becoming as popular as it has. Along the way the site has morphed to also become an awesome information source for just about anything connected to wooden boating. Some facts:
4,000,000 views
370,000 people have visited the site, most of them come back – some daily, some weekly, some just when they need to know something
2,469 stories
20,000+ photos published
A 50,000+ photo library
It wouldn’t have happened without in the early days a few fireside chats from people way more worldly in the wooden boating community than myself. The list of people that have shared their family photo albums, stories and knowledge with us is huge and  the site just wouldn’t be what it is today without these people.
I’ve made so many friends, and been fortunate to rub shoulders with a lot of you in person.
So where to from here?, I would be a lier if I said I had not considered pulling the pin a few times, its a big ask publishing a wooden boating story 365 days of the year, but for every one dark day when I’m questioning why I do it – I have 100 days where someone tells me that the first thing they do every every morning is check out Waitemata Woodys, or that they print the stories and once a week when they visit grandad they read them to him, because he is nearly blind, or when we uncover the provenance of someones boat, or when we find someones long lost family boat etc etc
Aside from thanking you all for your support and asking you to keep following Waitemata Woodys – I only have one request – please keep sending us your stories & photos – you may be thinking they won’t mean much to us, but at some stage, someone will send in something and SNAP, they match & we have the makings of a great story. Email them to   waitematawoodys@gmail.com
The following link takes you to a Waitemata Woodys story that epitomises all that’s good about the site – you wouldn’t find content like this anywhere else – it’s gold
And in answer to all the emails re when I will be doing another Waitemata Woodys t-shirt run – the answer is before Christmas, so start saving your pennies. I’ll do another post soon re taking orders 🙂
Again many thanks to everyone. I hope you all still enjoy the site as much as I do pulling it all together. Shortly I will be sharing with you some exciting news on how WW will become even more relevant to wooden boat owners, but for now I have pulled together a random selection of 101 woody photos that have appeared on the site – enjoy 🙂
Alan Houghton – founder
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21 thoughts on “Waitemata Woodys hits 4,000,000 views and celebrates with a gallery of over 100 classic wooden boat photos”

  1. At the time of purchasing Trinidad almost 21 years ago many people thought we’d gone completely bonkers…and maybe so. Since then, thanks to the input of waitematawoodys the interest in classic and wooden boats has undoubtedly increased threefold. There’s nothing more warm and fuzzy than viewing a bay full of restored and well cared for woodies, be it yacht or launch. Well done Houghty.

    Hi Barb – thanks for the nice words – FYI the story you commented on was from Oct 2018, since then the views have grown to 6.2 million 🙂
    Alan H

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  3. Hi Alan,

    Well done that is a great milestone. I read it every day and am in awe of your ability to push out such good content on a daily basis. We scouted around a lot of sites as part of the learning curve before purchasing a wooden boat (Mahanui) and you can be proud of creating a world-class resource!

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  5. Well done, Alan! The body of work that WW has produced is just incredible. We have all learned a great deal; a lot of myths have been exploded; a lot of opinions have been gently corrected; a lot of bs has been buried as compost. A very very valuable thing is WW!

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  6. Hey mate what a milestone, well done. I’m a habitual WW reader first thing in the morning too keeps me inspired to keep cracking on with he (too many) projects I have when I see the scale of projects others are undertaking ; ) What many readers won’t be aware of is all the other things you do. Like sending articles or reference shots you’ve found for things that are relevant to a project. Appreciate all your hard work and the friendship we have developed. Keep up the good work and look forward to how WW evolves in the future. Rod.

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  8. Congratulations on the 4 mill milestone ! I know WW causes a huge amount of memory jogging, as many of us have info and photos of events in our lives we have forgotten about, and it just takes a mention of a boat or even a boat in the back ground of a photo to get the brain cells firing. An example of this was my quest for info on building a scale model of RNZAF W1 (WW story) I had searched everywhere but only had 1 photo to work from. Met Ken R through WW, who had collected a number of photos etc, and through him met the current owner and managed to stand on the deck of the boat for the 2nd time in 50yrs (1st time as a 15yr old)
    I’m sure without WW that would not have happened, and that others have similar stories. Thanks Alan for your hard work and dedication.

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  9. Congratulations and thank you for your hard work and openness in showing all varieties of wooden vessels.
    Please keep up your good work

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  11. Brilliant achievement Alan. Not just the commitment you have brought to WW but the undeniable marketing expertise that most people don’t appreciate. Plus the significant international profile for NZ classic boating you have personally built. We’re looking for ten million next. Cheers Rick

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  12. Congratulations Alan, 4,000,000 is indeed a real achievement, & must say I have thoroughly enjoyed it since 2013, I think it was, & adding my little bit, to all the great & knowledgeable woodies input, as well as your own untiring dedication & focus, to keep it developing the way it has. I know I have learnt much along the way, as I’m sure thousands of other readers.
    I am sure we have all enjoyed it, & continue to enjoy it, in an ever enduring manner.

    LONG MAY THE SITE & YOUR GREAT WORK WITH IT, CONTINUE. — KEN R (edit by AH)

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  17. Hello there. I so enjoy reading and seeing photos of young and not so young. Gives me great enjoyment, thank you very much. Regards an elder lady boatie.💄⛵️🛥🛳⚓️⚓️

    Sent from my iPad

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  18. Well done Alan. WW is such an important part of our national wooden boat/ classic boat community. Keep up the great work, I know we have another chapter not far away. We must keep our maritime heritage alive and growing in this city, we are a maritime city and if we loose this we will become a very vanilla city.

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  19. Thanks for your site Alan. Same here, every day I take a look. Keep up the great work. Regards Bryce

    On Mon, 29 Oct 2018 at 12:11 AM, waitematawoodys.com #1 for classic wooden bo

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  20. Alan

    What an achievement, and you should be rightly proud.

    Chris

    waitematawoodys.com #1 for classic wooden boat stories, info, advice & news wrote:

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    Alan Houghton – waitematawoodys.com founder posted: ” If you think being passionate about wooden boats is niche – think again, there are a lot of us out there. Waitemata Woodys has just passed 4 MILLION views and we celebrate with over 100 classic wooden boating photos Never in a blue moon when I started “

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