WHERE AND WHEN DID WE GO WRONG
I just love the photos above, back then even smaller boats and boats with outboards still looked like real boats. I’d like to think that if something like these boats were around today they would be popular.
The caption on the top photo reads ’The Latest Development of Outboard Motor-Boating. A 20ft. V-bottom cabin boat built at Tauranga for use with a large-size outboard motor’
The SeaCraft runabout photo is via Peter Murton and again shows us that even small craft can look very salty.
Next week/weekend at the Auckland Viaduct Boat Show you will see some terrible examples of companies NOT using the skills of a designer or marine architect – but there will be some cool examples e.g. Dickey Boats from Napier seem to get it right every year 🙂
HIGHEST NUMBER OF PEOPLE EVER VIEWING waitematawoodys YESTERDAY
Interesting day yesterday, WW struggles with the UK market, despite lots of promotional activity we just can not seem to crack it. Yesterday was the biggest number of individual people ever on one day visiting the WW site, with UK visitors 2nd in numbers to NZ for the 1st time ever. Checking out the stats the WW story titled ‘Electro-Chemical Damage Update’ by Chris McMullen was the single biggest viewed page.
I can only assume that somewhere in the UK, maybe a wooden boat building school or a tech university etc told all their pupils to check out Chris’s findings – what ever the reason its great to see the WW site and Chris’s research findings getting exposure around the world 🙂
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Wow, world wide exposure of my research. That was never meant to be. My long winded, some say poorly structured article was written as a result of my frustration seeing so many good Kauri boats being destroyed by Cathodic protection. It was not my idea. Wooden Boat Magazine, Classic Boat Magazine and the Professional Boat builder Magazine have all had good articles on this subject. The subject articles were parallel to my experience so I tried to stop the rot (so to say) in New Zealand. I am not consultant, I don’t like writing but some one had to do it. I share my 60 years experience at no charge and at the risk of ridicule by a few. Worth it to see Kauri Classics continue to grace the Harbour. Please take care of your wooden boat, your mooring (marina) will be eagerly taken to berth a Gel Coated Horror show that will swamp you on the water.
I hope my writing has helped.
Chris McMullen Sept 2019
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I’m fairly sure that my navel wasn’t designed by a navel architect…. 🙂 oops
But, yes, I too prefer my boats to look like boats, and think about L. Francis Herreshoff’s nightmare. There is a proliferation of plastic “Marieras” and Rivitimos” along my pier ( I think they’re breeding nearby) that look as if the designer-cum-stylist used a toad as a model.
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