Following on from yesterdays (scroll down to view) story on the woodys cruise up the Wairoa River to the Clevedon Cruising Club, today we have a gallery of craft that both Jason Prew and myself photographed on-route, some old favourites there, most looking a little worse for the lack of TLC over winter, but a few newbies.
Enjoy the journey – we did 🙂 (remember to click photos to enlarge)
#3 PONSONBY CC CLUB NIGHT – FEATURED VESSEL – Rainbow II
NGARUNUI + LUCINDA ON-ROUTE TO CLEVEDON CRUISING CLUB
DOCKSIDE STROLL
Classic Wooden Craft Overnight Trip Up The Wairoa River
Over the weekend we had our first woodys event for the classic boating summer season – a cruise up the Wairoa River to overnight at the Clevedon Cruising Club. Due to lock downs and weather bombs we had skipped a couple of years so the weekend was long overdue.
Given tidal access restrictions the weekend always starts with an early departure to the mouth of the Wairoa River, the smart ones leave on the Friday.
The weather early (<5am) Saturday morning was raining cats & dogs, but as if prearranged at 5.30am it stopped and we enjoyed a very pleasant dawn passage. The group gathered at 8.45am and journeyed up the river, always a tad anxious but it was a 3.6m tide so all good.
I snapped a gallery of photos of the woodys that are moored on-route – separate WW story tomorrow.
Our hosts , lead by Commodore Alister (Al) excelled themselves from the RIB on-hand to assist with docking to the world famous (on the river) Saturday night BBQ. The evening included raffles, outdoor fires, a singer and karaoke and even dessert provided. I can report no-one in the woodys group stepped up to karaoke the mike 🙂 Woody Dave Giddens donated several ‘old’ sails to the club which will be repurposed as shade sails around the clubhouse.
If you have never been on one of the trips you need to – the club facilities and hospitality is so traditional / old school but in a cool way.
Included in the raffle prizes was a WW chopping board… I’ll need to talk to my copyright lawyer 🙂
We eat very well – sorry about the food pix but thats what you have to put up with 🙂
If you think that classic wooden craft are all sub 7 knotters check out the videos below of a couple of the voom-voomers.
LABOUR WEEKEND CLASSIC WOODY BOATINGAT KAWAU ISLAND
In recent years the Kawau Boating Club have probably been the must progressive boating club in town with their upgrades to facilities – clubhouse, jetty, fuel dock etc and securing the longtime tenure on the clubs assets.
In addition to all this the club, spearheaded by Mike Mahoney, have been planning to create an icon event for the club – well sometimes looking backwards is a smart thing – for decades the KBC hosted every Labour Weekend an OPENING WEEKEND REGATTA, but for all the wrong reasons the event had slipped off the calendar. Fast forward to 2024 and opening weekend at Kawau is back – bigger and better than ever.
KBC will be holding hands with the Ponsonby Cruising Club to offer up an action packed long weekend of boating activity – afloat and ashore. See below for details.
While most of the on-the-water activity is sailing focussed, WW have been working with KBC and PCC to encourage classic woody launches and classic cruising yachts to attend.
The plan is to hold a classic woody event on the Sunday where woodys will participate in a parade around the bays / baches in Bon Accord Harbour – along the lines of the Mahurangi Weekend launch parade. Meeting time will be 11am off KBC wharf.
We will spice it up with prizes for things like – Best Dressed Craft / Longest Traveled / Oldest Boat / Lucky Draw etc – + all woodys in the parade will also go in the draw for a haul-out at the Slipway Milford yard. On the Saturday there will be a waitematawoodys gathering ashore to catch up and enjoy each others company. There will be lots of opportunities over the weekend to enjoy the recently refurbished clubhouse – so make plans to be there.
So for now
1. Circle Oct 25 > 28 in the diary
2. View / download the file below to read all about the weekend.
3. If you own a yacht or crew on one – down load the entry form at the link below
And there is always a woody boat story – check out the photo below ex Ken Ricketts of two woodys in Whakatakataka Bay (Orakei, Auckland), can we put a name to the boat in the foreground. Excuse the image quality – pulled off TV screen.
INPUT ex NATHAN HERBERT – It’s Natasha which kept sinking and then was hauled at Okahu and presumably left by road or bin. The other is a Kempthorne / Salthouse KB760 type, presumable fibreglass. https://waitematawoodys.com/2017/06/07/natasha/
Earlier in the month we reported that the 34’ John Salthouse built classic wooden launch – SEA FEVER was hauled out at the Slipway Milford for some TLC.
Yesterday afternoon she slipped down the railway into the Milford creek looking very grand.
#1 job was a Jason Prew Paint Job but her newish owners also upgraded some systems, repainted the decks, converted the old compressor driven freezer to 12V and removed / replaced a few spots of boat cancer. She was also fitted with a bow thruster to protect the new paint job 😉
As per most owners the project is a rolling restoration and next winter the cabin coaming bright work will get a birthday.
SEA FEVER is one of John Salthouse’s best sedan designs and enjoys a light and airy saloon with large windows that makes for a very comfortable vessel both on route, at anchor or in the marina.
And if you are ever in doubt as to the best way to haul out > launch your classic woody – check out the video below – railways rock ✔️ your boat will repay you for the kid gloves.
You have to applaud the Ponsonby Cruising Club for their new initiative to get people interacting with boats on the water. Last Thursday (Aug 22) the club held their first ‘Featured Vessel Series’ , the name could do with some improvement 🙂 Simple idea – they host a vessel at one of the berths outside the Westhaven clubhouse and people can board and chat with owners / crew. Then afterwards there is a presentation upstairs at the club on the boats history.
The PCC kicked off with the famous (infamous) historic yacht – NGATAKI, from the Tino Rawa stable.
Unless you have been living under a rock, you’d know that NGATAKI was the yacht made famous in Johnny Wray’s cult classic book – ’South Sea Vagabonds’.
If you haven’t read the book – put it on the Fathers Day list – its a cracker. Myself and a lot of others reread it every few years, it reignites my passion for NZ and our wooden boating community.
Read the book to learn the link to why there is a bowl of oranges on the deck 😉
CHECK OUT DATE FOR NEXT PCC FEATURED VESSEL SERIES AT THE LINK BELOW
As a result of a story back in June where we asked woodys to ID a yacht that was high & dry we learnt it was NGATIRA and the location was Devonport.c.1917.
Today we have another classic yacht, that is still sailing today on the Waitemata Harbour, that has had an unfortunate oops – so woodys – all correct names of the boat go into the draw to win a WW burgee. If you also get the location correct you get two chances in the draw. Entry be email only to waitematawoodys@gmail.com Closes at 5pm 11-08-2024 – The sender of the photo and extended family are excluded 😉
PONSONBY CRUISING CLUB – NGATAKI EVENING
Check out the poster below, sounds like a great night – August 22
Todays photo is another from the Tauranga City Library collection and is tagged ‘ Launch of LADY ROSALINE’ and woodys is all we known. Given the location and style of the vessel possibly a Oliver & Gilpin craft. Can we learn more about her.
Todays photo comes to us from the McLeod collection at the Auckland Library Heritage Collection via Nathan Herbert. We see a launch in the configuration of a tram top + dog house, has to a 1920’s build most likely a flat top with the later (1930’s) additional of the tramtop and dog house.
The photo is tagged ‘ Launch beached after storm at Sulphur Beach, Northcote (Auckland) , 1930/39.
South Island (Waimate) woody – Russell Wallace reported in earlier in the week of a sad sequence of events at Oamaru Harbour. Russell tells the story below – “Oamaru harbour has been the refuge of a number of old small double ended fishing boats which have over the years succumbed to both their age and the elements.
The above photos show the latest sad victim which I took from the Oamaru Today Facebook page (credit to Oamaru Live and Oamaru Today for details and photos) Maybe some of your fans may know of this particular boat” edited
The story ex the fb posts goes like this – she broke her mid-harbour mooring and drifted to the inside of the breakwater and sank. From there she was towed to the Stanford’s berth.
From the photos a decision must have been made to hoist her out – the question is – was the breaking up intentional or was there an oops with the lift ?. Either way it is a very sad end to what looked to be a pretty woody double-ender needing restoring.
CIRCLE THE CALENDAR – UPCOMING CLASSIC BOATING EVENTS
Had a few mystery launches on WW high and dry recently so seems fair that we feature a yacht today.
For once I know the answer, so lets make it a quiz – all correct answers emailed to waitematawoodys@gmail.com before 6pm 29-06-24 go into the draw for a WW Burgee.
So correct boat name = one chance in the draw, correct boat name and location = two chances in the draw.Hint > location is Auckland area.
