Classic Boating Fallacy 

I have been meaning to write this story for a long time – one of my biggest frustrations with the classic wooden boating movement is that a lot of classic boat owners have this line on auto play when invited to a classic woody gathering –  “I’ll attend when I have finished doing up the boat” – FACT: 95% of us never finish ‘doing up the boat’ – its a rolling project. 

In the mean time woodys are missing out on catching up with other like minded human beings to – socialise, get advice, swap ideas and most importantly – using their boat.

A couple of weekends ago at Clevedon I was reminded of why we come together when one of the boat owners commented to me how much they appreciated that everyone opened up their boats and invited people on board for a chat. This allowed them to gathering ideas for their own project.

It’s not just dock-side blather – at Clevedon we had woody boat owners there that had the following industry experience – boat building, sail maker, rigger, canopy fabricator, marine insurance consultant and marine brokerage. You can’t access / buy that resource in one place anywhere.

Todays woody is the launch Ngarimu from Thames, been owned by Bruce Rowe for 10+ years and soon to be hauled out and taken home for some serious TLC. Bruce has made the long haul from Thames marina to attend several Woodys events – Riverhead, Clevedon and Paeroa. Each trip the experience helps him get closer to starting the big project. 

UPDATE – In Thames today – photo below very ‘fresh’, first time I’vee been there with the tide in 🙂

So woodys – ditch the Woody events are a beauty pageant attitude and just join in – you won’t regret it 🙂

Below I talk about why I started the WW weblog and the spirit behind it.

Whats the waitematawoodys website all about

Dedicated to the study and appreciation of classic wooden boats. WW was founded upon a desire to tell the stories and a need to the archive history of our classic wooden boats, the craftsman who built them & characters that owned and crewed on them. Visiting this blog is like a bunch of people in the boat club bar, there will be stuff discussed you know, stuff you know nothing about and stuff you want to know more about. That’s what waitematawoodys is about – gathering stories, photos, history, reminiscences.