SUNBEAM – Sailing Sunday
The photo above (ex Auckland Museum Winkleman collection via Lew Redwoods fb) is captioned ‘1900s “Sunbeam” on the slip’. I know nothing about her but she looks very slippery.
Hopefully one of the woody rag & stick boys can tell us more about her.
Trademe Finds
I spend a lot of time trolling the archives of trademe for anything wooden boat related & buy a lot of ’stuff’. Yesterdays courier van visit, dropped off a copy of book titled ’Selected MotorBoat Designs – Volume 16’. It was first published in 1934 & contains complete designs & building instructions for 35 motor boats of many styles. While the cover is very faded, the interior is mint, particularly the sets of line drawings.
Will give me something to read today, given the the CYA Patio Bay weekend was cancelled.
Hi Martin. Paradoxically, Robin and I were compelled to write because of Carter’s errors and omissions. Nevertheless he did a tremendous amount to nurture interest in our yachting history just at the right time, before it all got put in the skip. I treasured my copy which I got for my 12th birthday. The turning point for me was his ignorance and complete lack of understanding of the yachts of the 19th century, both keel yachts and especially the centreboarders. His description of Jessie Logan was ludicrous.
PS……copies of Robin’s and my books are still available (and very reasonably priced) at Boat Books.
(end of commercial).
LikeLike
HDK, of course any body keen on yachting (well a few launches as well) will have a copy of your wonderful compilation of Winkelman’s fabulous photos, but until you embarked on quest to educate us mere mortals all we had was Ronald Carter’s three books to tell us about the past, which were great at the time. Cheers I expect some commission.
LikeLike
Of course! A creature as gorgeous as SUNBEAM almost stops the heart. It’s a wonder the graph didn’t blow the tops of WW followers’ screens.
LikeLike
WW should stick to launches maybe?
HDK – as you know I’m a launch man, so WW always has a heavy skew to them. While I struggle to access yacht content, when it appears, it rates well with the readers – the graph below shows that the Sunbeam story (last column on the right) was well viewed. Alan
LikeLike
she is well known, I just couldn’t be bothered typing 😛
LikeLike
Harold and Robin’s book was were I got the info. I understood her to be very well known up in AK!
LikeLike
I wrote a response but it was too tragic to bother sending.
LikeLike
Oh dear, does nobody have a copy of Robin Elliott’s and my book on the Logans?
Shall I donate one to WW?
She was a 30ft Linear Rater.
LikeLike
Guessing Gavin is correct.. Bit difficult to tell the actual size, but I’d say she was a half-rater.
Geez Alan, just as well you didn’t have that book under your arm when you picked up the fender. I have a few of those Motor Boating Ideal series, but not that one – you’d have suffered a mugging! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
If you are fortunate enough to have a copy of Ronald Carter’s book published in 1945 the photo that appears today is featured in Carter’s book and below it is Sunbeam undergoing trials prior to her being shipped to Australia, with a comment that she is moving fast, under her big sloop rig.
LikeLike
I think there is a Half model on the wall of the Ponsonby Cruising Club, The models was made by Brookes so he might have more info on the History.
LikeLike
Very early Fin + Bulb racer showing Logan was right there with Sibbick etc in extreme design. From memory diagonally strapped or framed too? Never strong enough to survive the loads on her with the materials available back then, she would be an amazing thing to build new in glued epoxy / cold molded. Does anyone have photos of her underway?
LikeLike
Sunbeam looks like a large broads racing yacht , good pick on the book featuring timeless classics like those from William Atkin
LikeLike
Sunbeam was a Logan built for racing in Sydney in 1900 /01 when Logan boats were ruling the roost there
LikeLike