Category Archives: 1800’s

The Extraction of Daring

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The Extraction of Daring
 
Yesterday was a special day in the kiwi wooden boating world. The 1863 schooner Daring was extracted from my resting place at Muriwai Beach. She has been buried there for 153 years,

Daring is a 100% New Zealand built ship. Crafted in Mangawhai from kauri and pohutukawa. Since coming ashore she has been protected beneath the sand dunes of the Kaipara Heads, but up until yesterday she lie exposed to the elements and scavengers.

The above photos have been sourced from numerous sources – primarily – Whangateau Traditional Boats, David Waddingham, & T Foh.

I’m a little light on the history of Daring & how the rescue was funded etc – I suspect John Street had a very large hand in this, to use one of HDK’s favourite saying – “the mans blood needs bottling” Hopefully someone will chip in with more details. In the mean time well done to everyone involved – magic effort.
Input from Steve Horsley – Yes, it’s an enormous achievement to all those involved and hats off to John Street for the funding. I hope he gets some form of compensation from the historic trusts or government at the very least. Now that she is out the interest will build. Don’t worry everything has been well recorded and measured. As you can imagine there are numerous experts all putting in their 2 cents worth of what should and shouldn’t be done now. The core group has to take stock and make the right decisions. At this point, it is heading to YDL to be placed under cover and kept moist and a process of slowly drying her out. I believe Daring’s final resting place back on land will be at the Mangawhai Museum which is fitting as that is where she was built.
All credit to go to Baden Pascoe, Larry Paul and John Street, the movers and shakers of this awesome outcome. Also to all the others who have made this possible. Murry and his crew who has been sleeping in his Land Rover in the sand dunes for weeks on end protecting her and stopping fossickers flogging bits off her, also in gaining knowledge of who was flogging stuff and retrieving it. And to the crew that lifted her out of that sandy grave. Fantastic.
There is a ‘Daring rescue’ facebook page which you need to ‘like’ and support that has photos and history of her.
Just found this online 
AND WOODYS DO NOT FORGET TONIGHTS THE START OF THE RUDDER CUP MOTOR BOAT RACE – 7PM OFF THE RNZYS – more details below
Read more here –         https://classicyacht.org.nz/rudder-cup-rerun/
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Cruise To The Riverhead Hotel

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CRUISE TO THE RIVERHEAD HOTEL
If you have not visited the Riverhead Hotel by water, its time you did. The Classic Yacht Association (CYA) has an afternoon cruise to the pub next Sunday (18th). These events are a lot of fun – we head up the river / creek on mass & anchor / raft-up before going ashore for a drink & a catch-up. If you have concerns about the route, just follow the boat in front of you & anchor with the others. There will be plenty of ‘old-hands’ to show you the ropes.
High tide is 16:24pm & so we aim to be heading up the ‘creek’ 2hrs b4 HW, its a small tide at 2.8m so I would imagine we will be meeting up in the Herald Island / Lucus Creek area around 2.00pm, so leaving Westhaven area around 1pm. ETA at pub is 2.30pm & departure from the pub approx 5.30pm.
If you are not a CYA member (yet) come along & see what you have been missing out on.
The photo gallery above is a snap shot of past trips – enjoy.
Ps – Wear your WW shirt 🙂
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Waitemata Woodys hits 4,000,000 views and celebrates with a gallery of over 100 classic wooden boat photos

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If you think being passionate about wooden boats is niche – think again, there are a lot of us out there. Waitemata Woodys has just passed 4 MILLION views and we celebrate with over 100 classic wooden boating photos

Never in a blue moon when I started this site could I have seen it becoming as popular as it has. Along the way the site has morphed to also become an awesome information source for just about anything connected to wooden boating. Some facts:
4,000,000 views
370,000 people have visited the site, most of them come back – some daily, some weekly, some just when they need to know something
2,469 stories
20,000+ photos published
A 50,000+ photo library
It wouldn’t have happened without in the early days a few fireside chats from people way more worldly in the wooden boating community than myself. The list of people that have shared their family photo albums, stories and knowledge with us is huge and  the site just wouldn’t be what it is today without these people.
I’ve made so many friends, and been fortunate to rub shoulders with a lot of you in person.
So where to from here?, I would be a lier if I said I had not considered pulling the pin a few times, its a big ask publishing a wooden boating story 365 days of the year, but for every one dark day when I’m questioning why I do it – I have 100 days where someone tells me that the first thing they do every every morning is check out Waitemata Woodys, or that they print the stories and once a week when they visit grandad they read them to him, because he is nearly blind, or when we uncover the provenance of someones boat, or when we find someones long lost family boat etc etc
Aside from thanking you all for your support and asking you to keep following Waitemata Woodys – I only have one request – please keep sending us your stories & photos – you may be thinking they won’t mean much to us, but at some stage, someone will send in something and SNAP, they match & we have the makings of a great story. Email them to   waitematawoodys@gmail.com
The following link takes you to a Waitemata Woodys story that epitomises all that’s good about the site – you wouldn’t find content like this anywhere else – it’s gold
And in answer to all the emails re when I will be doing another Waitemata Woodys t-shirt run – the answer is before Christmas, so start saving your pennies. I’ll do another post soon re taking orders 🙂
Again many thanks to everyone. I hope you all still enjoy the site as much as I do pulling it all together. Shortly I will be sharing with you some exciting news on how WW will become even more relevant to wooden boat owners, but for now I have pulled together a random selection of 101 woody photos that have appeared on the site – enjoy 🙂
Alan Houghton – founder
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Mystery Boat – Wairoa District

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MYSTERY BOAT – WAIROA DISTRICT

Today’s photo comes to us from one of Bruno Redwood’s old fb posts, sadly Bruno (brother of Lew) passed away recently.
The photo shows a group of day trippers, possibly on Lake Waikaremoana c.1880’s
Anyone able to ID the boat & confirm the location?
Harold Kidd Input – KAHURANGI, built for the Goverrnment Tourist Bureau for use on Lake Waikaremoana by Logan Bros August 1903, 36ft loa 10hp Union engine.
The photo below was sent to me yesterday by woody – Tim Evill, Tim was out fishing in the middle of the gulf between Rocky Bay and Maraetai & spotted a bouy in the water (11m depth) on closer inspection there was a yacht attached to it – anyone able to tell us what was at the end of the mast & how it got there?
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Wooden Boating VIP On The Waitemata

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Wooden Boating VIP On The Waitemata

Today I hosted Ben Mendlowitz on Raindance, Ben is the number one wooden boat photographer in the world & shoots for just about every boating magazine there is & produces the world famous “Calendar of WoodenBoats’ + has authored dozens of books on the subject.
While in New Zealand Ben was keen to photograph some of our classic fleet, so we headed out yesterday to catch the classic division of the RNZYS Winter Series race.
Ben will have some stunning photos, I was just the driver today so only took a few, very average photos – I did however capture 2 rare events:
1. Thelma going a ground off Stanley Point – some very red faces
2. Jason Prew venturing forward of the mast on Rawene – he didn’t look comfortable 🙂
Photos below – enjoy
THE NEW ZEALAND SAILING DINGHY EXHIBITION
In case you missed it – in 2 weeks (Oct 5>7th) is the annual Classic Yacht & Launch Exhibition at the Viaduct – this year the theme is ‘The New Zealand Sailing Dinghy’ – I’ll post more on the event during the week – but right now Tony Stevenson is doing a call out to anybody interested in displaying their classic NZ designed and built sailing dinghy, yacht class information or memorabilia.
Please contact Tony Stevenson tonys@nwv.co.nz  or 021 977 456
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Mansion House Bay – Kawau Island 1950 + Ida is coming home

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Mansion House 1950

Mansion House Bay – Kawau Island 1950 + Ida is coming home
I was sent the above photo by Iain Forsyth who obtained it from an old sailing mate named Ron Thickpenny. Ron restored the Fairmile Seandra, ex Hopper Brothers.
In the photo you can see a HDML along side the wharf.
Can we have a go at ID’ing the fleet in the bay?
IDA To Return To NZ
During the week Harold Kidd reported on WW that John Street and Wayne Olsen have just returned from Sydney, & John has bought IDA, the 1895 C & W Baileys built 65’ yacht & is shipping her back for restoration. She has been based in Sydney for a very long time. Once back in NZ & restored by Wayne Olsen she will give the CYA A-Class fleet a big fright 🙂
The photo was supplied by Kim Watts, who purchased the original 1912 signed Winkelman print 25 years ago.
There are more photos & details on her past owners at the WW link below
To quote Harold – “The man’s (John S) blood is worth bottling!
WW IDA Link    https://waitematawoodys.com/2016/05/15/ida-sailing-sunday-more/
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Mystery Devonport Yacht

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1800s Devonport

Mystery Devonport Yacht

The caption on this photo ex Keith Humphreys states its dated c.1800, not sure if that is correct, but I am sure one of the woodys will be able to tell us the name of the yacht.
The location is Devonport, Auckland.
The Story of Tally Ho
On the other side of the world, a truely amazing project is underway by a very young boatbuilder named Leo Sampson Goolden to restore the 1910, Albert Strange built Pilot Cutter, Tally Ho – check out the link below & view the video posts – remember to start at #1. Special thanks to woody Denis O’Callahan (MV Tasman) for the heads up on the story. If you are anything like me you will be lost for several hours 🙂

Devonport Waterfront Woodys

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Devonport Waterfront Woodys

Lurking around the ‘Devonport Locals facebook’ page the other day I came across these stunning b/w photos of Torpedo Bay on the eastern end of the waterfront, beneath North Head.
The top one is captioned 1893 residences of M. Murchie, Tailor, Garrybrook and Jeffery. Keen to ID the yachts hauled out, talk about VIP parking.
The 2nd photo shows a wide view of the bay, possibly 1925. These days a sea wall & numerous breakwaters have returned sand to the foreshore.
Correction – they transported sand from else where, the breakwaters have retained the sand, seem to recall the local tribe getting a little prickly about the sand coming from another area……………..

Input ex Harold Kidd

Malcolm Murchie’s (a tailor) house was “Lochiel” early address just “Beach Road, Devonport” later 59, then 60 King Edward Parade or just King’s Parade. I have been through the Directories looking for yachtsmen who may have parked their boats in front but failed to link any. My (highly tentative) guesses are (from left) Capt Parker’s rowing cutter VOLUNTEER which was used by the Naval Volunteers at Devonport, later with an engine, an early 2.5 rater GLORIANA? ROGUE? and LULU, the double-ender. Robin Elliott should chime in now.

PS I suppose the lkeel yacht could be the Jeffrey brothers’ KESTREL, but she wasn’t launched until December 1893 and they lived at Maraetai. However it is likely that she was kept in Torpedo Bay as she came ashore there in a blow in 1897 and Arch Buchanan (who lived a few doors to the left) looked after her. Come to think of it the boat could well have been one of Arch’s Logan-built boats, at this era the 5 rater ARIEL or slightly later the 5 rater YVONNE.

PPS Not ARIEL

The right hand yacht is MERRY DUCHESS and the date is nearer 1900.

 

Looking for a pulpit rail for your classic yacht?
I don’t normally do ‘bits for sale’ –  but the owner of the piece of bronze below – Andy Winter is a good guy & has helped a lot of woody owners out. So here goes – 1x bronze tube pulpit rail off Andy’s old Spencer Salient.  He is open to offers – details below:
Andy Winter c/o The Engine Room (9) 480 2248 or email: andy@theengineroom.co.nz
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Awatea – Sailing Sunday + Woollacott 4 Sale

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AWATEA – Sailing Sunday

The above photos of Awatea come to us via Bruno Redwood’s facebook page – & show the yacht Awatea in a tributary of the Henderson Creek c. November 1931.

Awatea was but in 1886 by Charles Bailey Snr in Auckland. She was sold to a Henry Swan c. 1897, & there is an urban legend that in1901 Swan reputedly told his friends that he was embarking on a solo world navigation, when in fact he sailed Awatea to the creek & spent the next 30 years living aboard or nearby. Harold Kidd has advised the story is “total bollocks” – Swan being a wealthy, retired solicitor, who owned a large property on the banks of the Whau River, on which he had large commercial orchards. He was also chairman of the Roads Board.

He died in November 1931.

Jason Prew had advised that these days Awatea is in storage at Whangaparaoa.

04-07-2018 Input from Colin Brown – Colin was a part owner of Awatea for a few years with Pete Mcurdy & his wife. Colin is in the process of building a scale sailing model (photos below). Colin confirms Jason’s comment above re her current whereabouts.

WOOLLACOTT Looking For A Home

I have been contacted by Phil Parks the Dockmaster at Sandspit Marina about a little Woollacott (photos below) on the hard at the Sandspit Yacht club.

Her present owner inherited her but has come to the realisation the project is too big for him so she is for sale for giveaway price.

She is complete, 6 winches, solar panels, alloy rig. Phil commented that she is a pretty little boat. She needs to be saved. So woodys – any one want a project?

Viewing at Sandspit or more details Phil can be contacted on 027 2828249

 

 

Leisure Hour – Update

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LEISURE HOUR

I have been contacted by Don & Teresa Windley, the new owners of Leisure Hour. Teresa & Don purchased Leisure Hour from master boat restorer John Wright and sailed her from Westpark Marina Hobsonville to her new home at Mahurangi Marinas. Built some 82 years ago she is built strong and has strong standing rigging. Her little Arona diesel engine performed well and didn’t miss a beat on the trip. Don told me that they will continue with the good work John Wright started in keeping this lovely old sail boat in good sailing condition, 1st project being rewiring all the internal electrics. This winter a planned haul out will include masts out which need re-varnishing.

Don thanked WW for publishing Leisure Hours story a little while ago that included some of her history from Harold Kidd. The WW story and the trademe ad helped them to make the decision to purchase a classic they could manage to sail together, as they had been looking for some time. It is always nice to hear that WW is helping people discover the classic wooden boating movement.

You can see/read more about her here https://waitematawoodys.com/2017/12/24/classic-vintage-1936-ketch-leisure-hour/

09-01-2021 Update from Angus Rogers – photos below taken at Gt Barrier Island 2020-21 xmas/ny period

 

As a bonus today –  below is a link to a 30min video of the Melbourne based classic yacht Sayonara, in Sydney for News Eve 2001 , sent to me by Alan Good – enjoy it’s a cool look back at yachting 17 years ago.