CLASSIC MASON CLIPPER – HOTSPUR – REFURBISHED 

Recently, woody Angus Rogers sent in the top photos of HOTSPUR , a recently restored 24’ Mason Clipper that calls the Outdoor Boating Centre (OBC) in Auckland home.

Angus pointed her owner – Fraser Elder in the direction WW and Fraser sent in the gallery of photos of HOTSPUR.

This wasn’t a fast project, in fact Fraser commented that from start to finish it was 9 years, fitting it between work and family commitments.

Some background – HOTSPUR was built c.1968/1969 and during the restoration, several bits of the timber in the boat were numbered (as in the photo with H15 on  the inside of the instrument panel) and they are numbered H15, H16 and H17. Fraser reinstalled these parts to keep the numbers in the boat. Puzzled about the presence of three numbers, Fraser spoke to Anne Mason about this, and was told ‘Oh that’s to be expected, we built the boats in threes’, so there was always an amount of cross pollination between the boats.

HOTSPUR was built with a fibreglass hull, after the first tranche of builds with a timber hull, but there is a lot of mahogany in her. During the restoration Fraser needed to replace a high percentage of that timber, using sapele, as real mahogany is no longer allowed to be sold because of the CITES agreement.

Before the restoration, she had a BMW D150 (around 140HP) diesel engine. However, this had several parts that were too corroded or rusted too be used and very hard, or impossible to replace because of the age of the engine. So Fraser installed the BMW D190 (around 180HP) that he had purchased along with the boat. It was also newer and had, he was told had been rebuilt, although this is later questioned. It is this engine that you see running in the boat after he had figured out the few issues he had getting the engine started.

The restoration was mainly completed around August 2022 after nine years but as with any of these restorations, there are still (mainly small) tasks to do, and things that Fraser will eventually get around to, including replacing some of the work he did in the early days, as he says he is now more skilled 🙂 and more knowledgeable about some the techniques to use.

LOCATION IS DOCKSIDE AT THE VIADUCT EVENTS CENTRE – DETAILS HERE https://www.auckland-boatshow.com