1939 Sanders Cup Crowd at Port Levy – Brother Bill Hemsley seated centre under “Mayor” holding imitation Cup.
The Crew Of Huia
HUIA AND THE SANDERS CUP
WW was recently contacted by Carol Jukes regarding her father George Hemsley and the 1932 X-Class dinghy – Huia. You can read more on Huia on the WW link below, I’ll let Carol’s note tell the story. https://waitematawoodys.com/2018/08/19/restoration-of-the-1936-x-class-dinghy-huia-x22/
“Dad had a pretty good memory and for many years we asked him to write his memories down, at last he and I got cracking. Dad grew up in Lyttelton and the sea was a great part of his life. The Sanders Cup left a lasting impression on him, the article on HUIA and the Sanders Cup was taken from his book (Just George). His love of the sea continued all of his life and at one time he was the proud owner of Cherub #1. Like the owner who gave HUIA a new lease of life, Dad did the same for Cherub #1. My Brother David and I were also keen yachties
Unfortunately my photos of the HUIA sailing in the Sanders Cup leave a lot to be desired, I would be interested if anyone has a good copy as I am in the process of updating Dads book, I am now up to the chapter of the HUIA and the Sanders Cup and that’s how I came upon the waitematawoodys site when I put HUIA into the Google search engine. Thank you for your interest.”
Extract Below From George Hemsley’s Memories (2.8.1913 > 29.7.2010)
It was the year 1939 when my Brother Bill Hemsley’s yacht “Huia” the Canterbury representative won the Sanders Cup. This event was sailed on Bluff Harbour with the first race starting on the 20th January. She was skippered by W A Tissiman with the crew of Bill Hemsley, S Sillars and H Brodie.
Her placings were as follows:-
Race #1 – Third
#2 – First
#3 – Huia did not start as she was unable to reef:-
#4 – second or third
#5 – First
#6 – First
HUIA wins the Sanders Cup.
“The Sanders Cup” yes it would seem that salt-water activities create bad feelings between yachties. Take the “Americas” cup today, what do we have, well when I was still at school the “Sanders Cup” was the same as the “Americas Cup” capable of stirring up the people of New Zealand to great enthusiasm between each province that competed. The reason that I do remember because my brother Bill (William Roy Hemsley) had bought the 14 footer HUIA.
Now in Lyttelton we had a man that built these 14 footers they had to be the exact measurement set down to fit a mould and no excuses for any mistakes. Mr Fred Dobbie was the man who built most of these 14 footers. Well brother Bill’s yacht was built by a different builder – from memory his name was Dick Tredenick.
It came time to race to determine who was to represent Canterbury – it was sailed in Lyttelton. To the best of my knowledge Huia won the first three races outright, so was the winner, but no they had to sail another three races, which she also won, now she had won six out of six races, but they the ”opposition” was determined that a Dobbie built boat was going to go, so they counted another three races which HUIA refused to enter and another boat was the winner of the next three races. This caused bad feeling especially when Brother Bill was asked to lend his set of sails to send the other boat away.
However the next year when HUIA again won the races there was no doubt. The HUIA did represent Canterbury for the 1939 Sanders Cup and did win the Sanders Cup for her province. The racing was held in Bluff with Bill Tissiman as skipper.
Between 1921 and 1946 Canterbury won the Sanders Cup 9 times, with the racing being sailed in Lyttelton 5 times and between 1921 & 1946. There was no racing during the war years of 1942-43-44 and 45.
I remember reading about a rowing race that was held for the visiting reporters as well, before the commencement of cup racing. I don’t know if this was always the case but the race in question was 1928 at Stewart Island. This caused a great deal of hilarity as well and was fiercely contested. Boats of supporters followed each reporter yelling encouragement to them and the opposite to the opposition. I do wonder if the same spirit is still as evident today.
06-03-2023 INPUT BELOW EX ROBIN ELLIOTT
Bit of an essay here but …. it’s complicated
Recollections are tricky things and although correct by and large, several seasons in your father’s memoir, 1936-1939, appear to have been conflated into one major story. I recommend a serious trawling of Papers Past to straighten out the kinks.
As unfair as it sounds, it was not uncommon for Sanders Cup committees to ‘swap out’ crew, or sails from one winning boat onto their chosen representative, such was their desperation to be successful. Many skippers angrily resented this practice and refused to comply with requests to turn their boat over to their Sanders Cup Selection committee to have the best bits pinched off it. Here is the justification.
Huia also suffered from being regarded as ‘an old boat’. Back in 1924 R. Tredennick and Fred Dobby built Pioioi, Dobby’s first 14-footer, which was wrecked during its maiden race. It seems that 8 years later, rather than go back to Fred Dobby for a new boat, Tredennick may have used these 1924 moulds to build Huia. She was often referred to as a Dobby boat ‘built by Tredennick’.
Either way, Huia was launched in November 1932, carried sail number X-7. She did little of note until sold to Bill Hemsley around 1935 who installed Sanders Cup winning skipper Elliot Sinclair on the helm. She was suddenly a very competitive boat.
This caused a problem for Sanders Cup selectors because Canterbury had won the previous 4 contests in the newer Dobby-built boats, Avenger and Irene. The Huia design, if from the Pioioi moulds, would have been over 10 years old, and amateur built at that. Maybe too much risk?
The committee selected a proven winner, the Dobby-built Avenger, put Huia’s Eliot Sinclair on as skipper with one of his crew and two of Avenger’s normal crew.
Avenger won the 1936 Sanders Cup so it was all seen as justifiable in the end.
It is unclear when Bill Hemsley sold Huia, possible as early as 1937. For the 1936/37 Sanders Cup Trials he sailed with Bill Tissiman on Colleen, won selection and was Canterbury Rep that season, coming a close second to the winner Lavina from Wellington.
In the 1937/38 season Huia was sailed by R. Hendry, and in 1938/39 Bill Tissiman was on the helm when she won selection for the 1939 Sanders Cup at Bluff.
It doesn’t look like Bill Hemsley was in the crew of Huia that season. He may have accompanied the group to Bluff but he was not selected as crew.
Just to complicate matters, I have a copy of the Wheatley & Reid’s Sanders Cup book which has, facing page 169, a ‘photo of the crew of Huia’ at Bluff 1939 (the same as your ‘crew of Huia’ photo above).
X-class historian, the late Murray Stark has noted on my copy of the book, ‘Facing page 169 NOT the 1939 crew’ and lists the crew as per the Papers Past articles above.
I suspect that the ‘crew photo’ is that of Colleen from 2 years earlier with Bill Hemsley in the crew.
You may find more details in a trawl of Papers Past.
Whoever owned Huia sold her to W. Pool of Akaroa in 1941 and she was still racing with the Akaroa Sailing Club as late as 1948.
My Canterbury contact (the late Graham Mander who raced many times at the Akaroa Regattas) was fairly sure she had been converted to a runabout in the late 1950’s early 60’s.
It seems unlikely (though not impossible) that she is the X-class Huia since restored and appearing on the earlier Woodys post.
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H i Robin, This has all been a great exercise for me, and I agree you are probably correct it your assumptions about the Huia, I will make sure if I use the photo of the crew that I have I will correctly name as probable crew from the Colleen. Of interest one of the articles I read mentioned that the spinnaker hand had been trained by the great spinnaker hand Fred Forman, now Fred Forman ended up here in Gisborne and I can remember visiting with them many times. I have a photo of Dad and Fred holding up a copy of the book Boats and Blokes written by George Brassel, an interesting read. and one chapter of it that effected them both a lot, all being great Lyttelton lads.
po[You were correct in the trawlers taking the supporters to Port Levy, as I have a couple of photos of them, including the PUP (my Dads boat) laden up with 50 gallons of beer aboard, the Stornaway and the C.A.G.
I came across some sad information. I asked if the Press had a copy of an original photo they had printed that I was interested in, and unfortunately they now all belong to TheFairfaxArchives.com these prints are now being put up for auction. From memory Fairfax bought them from a company who took over the bankruptcy. (In America) They had hoped that some one in NZ would take them over but nobody was interested so to get their money back they are auctioning them off in lots. You will find the story about it on Fairfaxes website.
Carol
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No where can I find a mention of Huia being sold until 1940 when she went to Akaroa. There is mention of ‘her owners sportsmanship’ in taking her to the Timaru Regatta over New year 1939/40, but just who the owner was is not stated.
Canterbury had a group of excellent skippers during the 1930’s who were regularly placed on these boats to see who could come out on top. Fred Dobby built most of them and owned 3 of them at the same time.
Tissiman and Sillars were highly experienced Sanders Cup yachties, and like Elliot Sinclair, George Brasel, were really ‘jockeys’ who rode the fastest horse they could get. The other provinces did exactly the same such was the fever to win the Sanders Cup.
I think it’s quite possible that Bill Hemsley still owned Huia in 1939, BUT he was not in her Sanders Cup crew for that 1939 Series.
The mis-identification of that crew photo goes back to 1946 when the book “History of the Sanders Cup 1921-1946′ was published, and as it has been used as a ‘bible’ since then, the error has been compounded. It is also interesting that in the book, facing page 169, the only person identified is “W. Tissiman (skipper) on extreme right.”
The book has head shots of all winning Sanders Cup skippers and I suspect that when publishing deadline arrived they found they were caught without a photo of Bill Tissiman and the Colleen one was pressed into service and mis-captioned.
The late Murray Stark, who was old enough to have met some of these competitors, was an obsessive collector of X-class info and tracked down many old boats that he found rotting on farms and up estuaries. He talked to many old-timers before it was too late and made many corrections in the margins of his copy of the book, which I have.
His note in his copy of the history, “Facing page 169 NOT the 39 crew. See Huia 39, W. Tissiman (Bill), S. Sillars (Stuart), J. Olsen (Jack), H. Brodie (Harry).”
The fact that he has mentioned their christian names would indicate that he had been talking to them or maybe someone who knew them.
I am fairly sure that the photo you have is the crew of Colleen, the Canterbury rep in the 1937 Sanders Cup.
Looking at Papers Past, Bill Hemsley began the 1936/37 season sailing Huia, but then put her way and began racing with Bill Tissiman on the Colleen. They won the Canterbury trials and this article below mentions Tissiman and “his present crew of K. Sillars (spinnaker hand), G. Harris and W. Hemsley.”
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19361221.2.108?end_date=31-12-1937&items_per_page=10&query=colleen+sanders+tissiman&snippet=true&sort_by=byDA&start_date=01-10-1936&title=AMBPA%2cAG%2cASHH%2cEG%2cGLOBE%2cKAIST%2cLT%2cNCGAZ%2cOO%2cCHP%2cSCANT%2cTS%2cSUNCH%2cTEML%2cTHD%2cWDA
If that photo is in fact of the 1937 Colleen crew, then everything else falls into place. Left to right: Stuart Sillars, G. Harris (with the pipe), Bill Hemsley and Bill Tissiman.
The 1938/39 newspaper reports, of which there are several, PLUS a photograph, stating Huia crew in 1939 to be “S. Sillars, H. Brodie & J. Olsen and W.T. Tissiman” are also correct, and being contemporary reports are difficult to refute.
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19390123.2.144.10?end_date=31-12-1939&items_per_page=10&page=3&query=huia+sanders+cup&snippet=true&sort_by=byDA&start_date=01-10-1938&title=AMBPA%2cAG%2cASHH%2cEG%2cGLOBE%2cKAIST%2cLT%2cNCGAZ%2cOO%2cCHP%2cSCANT%2cTS%2cSUNCH%2cTEML%2cTHD%2cWDA
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19390126.2.109?end_date=31-12-1939&items_per_page=10&page=3&query=huia+sanders+cup&snippet=true&sort_by=byDA&start_date=01-10-1938&title=AMBPA%2cAG%2cASHH%2cEG%2cGLOBE%2cKAIST%2cLT%2cNCGAZ%2cOO%2cCHP%2cSCANT%2cTS%2cSUNCH%2cTEML%2cTHD%2cWDA
In conclusion, it’s quite possible that Huia was still ‘Bill’s boat’ even though he wasn’t on it for the winning series. He wouldn’t have been the first owner of a Sanders Cup boat to give up a place on his yacht ‘for the common good’. He probably went down to Bluff to watch it and did a couple of wheelies in the Huia after the prizegiving.
The Canterbury Yacht and Motor Boat Club frequently held picnics at Port Levy. In good weather a few of the Sanders Cup X-class would make the trip but often the crews smuggled themselves away as crew on the keelers. The trip to Port Levy could be quite challenging if the weather was bad.
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Hello Robin
this is great, a debate is good for the brain.
Now you may be correct in all that you have commented on. I mean to say Bill Hemsley’s Huia won the 1939 Sanders Cup, well perhaps he still didn’t own her? but I suppose the family would still refer to the Huia as Brother Bills Yacht.
My photo’s came from my Dads album and from the yacht club itself, I have some more photos of the celebrations that went on, evidently at Port Levy.
Now as for being a sports person myself, I do know that the odd time a replacement may be called in at the last minute, and as all paper work has already been done the original team is noted as the winner. Do you think this is possible and happened?.
There is something else that puzzles me, the photo in papers past of the crew with J Olsen in it, in place of Bill Hemsley, all the men look about the same height, but in my photo there is one of the crew who is a lot taller than the other three and he is not even standing straight in the photo. (man with pipe) Bill Hemsley is in white and I think it is W. Tissaman who is the other side of Bill H.
I wish my Dad was still here to put us all on the right track with this conundrum, there will be nobody still with us who knows, so we will have to draw our own conclusion to this saga.
To me this sort of racing was more skill and team work than what they sail now, it might be exciting but it’s over in a blink of the eye, bring back the spinnaker and team work any day.
I look forward to your comments
Carol
.
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Bit of an essay here but …. it’s complicated (many thanks for this update Robin, as always it had so much more depth and accuracy to the story. Alan H)
Recollections are tricky things and although correct by and large, several seasons in your father’s memoir, 1936-1939, appear to have been conflated into one major story. I recommend a serious trawling of Papers Past to straighten out the kinks.
As unfair as it sounds, it was not uncommon for Sanders Cup committees to ‘swap out’ crew, or sails from one winning boat onto their chosen representative, such was their desperation to be successful. Many skippers angrily resented this practice and refused to comply with requests to turn their boat over to their Sanders Cup Selection committee to have the best bits pinched off it. Here is the justification.
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19351230.2.30.3?end_date=31-12-1936&items_per_page=10&query=huia+sanders+cup&snippet=true&sort_by=byDA&start_date=01-10-1935&title=AMBPA%2cAG%2cASHH%2cEG%2cGLOBE%2cKAIST%2cLT%2cNCGAZ%2cOO%2cCHP%2cSCANT%2cTS%2cSUNCH%2cTEML%2cTHD%2cWDA
Huia also suffered from being regarded as ‘an old boat’. Back in 1924 R. Tredennick and Fred Dobby built Pioioi, Dobby’s first 14-footer, which was wrecked during its maiden race. It seems that 8 years later, rather than go back to Fred Dobby for a new boat, Tredennick may have used these 1924 moulds to build Huia. She was often referred to as a Dobby boat ‘built by Tredennick’.
Either way, Huia was launched in November 1932, carried sail number X-7. She did little of note until sold to Bill Hemsley around 1935 who installed Sanders Cup winning skipper Elliot Sinclair on the helm. She was suddenly a very competitive boat.
This caused a problem for Sanders Cup selectors because Canterbury had won the previous 4 contests in the newer Dobby-built boats, Avenger and Irene. The Huia design, if from the Pioioi moulds, would have been over 10 years old, and amateur built at that. Maybe too much risk?
The committee selected a proven winner, the Dobby-built Avenger, put Huia’s Eliot Sinclair on as skipper with one of his crew and two of Avenger’s normal crew.
Avenger won the 1936 Sanders Cup so it was all seen as justifiable in the end.
It is unclear when Bill Hemsley sold Huia, possible as early as 1937. For the 1936/37 Sanders Cup Trials he sailed with Bill Tissiman on Colleen, won selection and was Canterbury Rep that season, coming a close second to the winner Lavina from Wellington.
In the 1937/38 season Huia was sailed by R. Hendry, and in 1938/39 Bill Tissiman was on the helm when she won selection for the 1939 Sanders Cup at Bluff.
It doesn’t look like Bill Hemsley was in the crew of Huia that season. He may have accompanied the group to Bluff but he was not selected as crew.
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19381220.2.42?end_date=31-12-1939&items_per_page=10&page=2&query=huia+sanders+cup&snippet=true&sort_by=byDA&start_date=01-10-1938&title=AMBPA%2cAG%2cASHH%2cEG%2cGLOBE%2cKAIST%2cLT%2cNCGAZ%2cOO%2cCHP%2cSCANT%2cTS%2cSUNCH%2cTEML%2cTHD%2cWDA
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19390123.2.144.10?end_date=31-12-1939&items_per_page=10&page=3&query=huia+sanders+cup&snippet=true&sort_by=byDA&start_date=01-10-1938&title=AMBPA%2cAG%2cASHH%2cEG%2cGLOBE%2cKAIST%2cLT%2cNCGAZ%2cOO%2cCHP%2cSCANT%2cTS%2cSUNCH%2cTEML%2cTHD%2cWDA
Just to complicate matters, I have a copy of the Wheatley & Reid’s Sanders Cup book which has, facing page 169, a ‘photo of the crew of Huia’ at Bluff 1939 (the same as your ‘crew of Huia’ photo above).
X-class historian, the late Murray Stark has noted on my copy of the book, ‘Facing page 169 NOT the 1939 crew’ and lists the crew as per the Papers Past articles above.
I suspect that the ‘crew photo’ is that of Colleen from 2 years earlier with Bill Hemsley in the crew.
You may find more details in a trawl of Papers Past.
Whoever owned Huia sold her to W. Pool of Akaroa in 1941 and she was still racing with the Akaroa Sailing Club as late as 1948.
My Canterbury contact (the late Graham Mander who raced many times at the Akaroa Regattas) was fairly sure she had been converted to a runabout in the late 1950’s early 60’s.
It seems unlikely (though not impossible) that she is the X-class Huia since restored and appearing on the earlier Woodys post.
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