Category Archives: Events

St Ayles Skiff’s In The Bay of Islands

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St Ayles Skiff’s In The Bay of Islands
 
Time for a break from the miles of Australian varnished wood on display at the recent Wooden Boat Festival in Hobart 🙂
Today we are looking at some very smart St Alyes skiffs that made an appearance at last months Millennium Cup in the Bay of Islands. Woody Dean Wright snapped the above photos at Russell. It appeared that the crews from several of the super yachts ran their own mini regatta – a rowing race around the bay. Dean captured this on video (below) and commented that given the speed they hit the beach obviously the racing crews weren’t the guys in charge of the paint job.
 
I assume that Mike Mahoney was behind the rowing race as one of the skiffs – Wee Tawera, would have been aboard his magnificent super-yacht – Tawera. Mike was one of the people, including Baden Pascoe and Steve Cranch and others that introduced St Ayles skiffs and the concept of coastal rowing to New Zealand. Wee Tawera was built at the NZ Traditional Boat Building School. View more on her here. https://waitematawoodys.com/2015/03/29/wee-tawera/
 
 
 

Australian Wooden Boat Festival 2019 – Photo Parade – Part 3 – 90 photos + video

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TAMARIKI – Peter Mortimer

Australian Wooden Boat Festival 2019 – Photo Parade – Part 3 – 90 photos + video

For the few of you that have seen enough beautiful boats in the last few days, I promise today will be the last AWBF photo gallery. But for the record Tuesdays AWBF WW story out performed Mondays story and had in fact the highest number of views of any story on WW in the last 12 months 🙂
Today our gallery comes to us from the camera of CYA NZ Chairperson – James  Mortimer. On top of capturing some great photos, James was in a very unique position at the festival – his father Peter was exhibiting the 1979, Gary Wheeler built yacht – Tamariki (photo above), which was the only NZ flagged boat in attendance, and they briefly had the past two NZ CYA chairs and the current one on board for a beer at the same time, nice.
Again, different person = different perspective – enjoy and remember , click on photos to enlarge.
And as a bonus we also have a video of the James Craig leaving her dock – would be nice to have a vessel of her presence based on the Waitemata. Filmed by Andrew Christie.

Australian Wooden Boat Festival 2019 – Photo Parade – Part 2 – 337 photos

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Australian Wooden Boat Festival 2019 – Photo Parade – Part 2 – 337 photos

One of the interesting things reviewing all the photos that have been sent in from the festival is that each person ’sees’ the festival through different eyes – so what they end up photographing is very different from someone else.
Todays collection from Fiona Driver and Rod Marler is a perfect example, it is a very different view from yesterdays and also shows the scale of the event. Worthy of its own WW story.
I could have edited the collection down, but the photographer/s are very passionate woodys so if the image appealed to them, I’m confident it will to you. Enjoy 🙂
Scroll down after todays photo gallery to view more of the festival in Part 1 of the coverage.
And remember , click on photos to enlarge.

Australian Wooden Boat Festival 2019 – Photo Parade – 200 Classic Wooden Boat Photos – Part 1

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AUSTRALIAN WOODEN BOAT FESTIVAL 2019 – HOBART, TASMANIA – PHOTO PARADE 200 CLASSIC WOODEN BOAT PHOTOS

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Well woodys while I was gutted that I had to cancel my trip to the festival, I honestly believe that we have ended up with a better view of the festival. I have been inundated with photos from woodys from both sides of the Tasman. The coolest thing is that the show is so big and the exhibitions so broad, that there have hardly been any duplications – my new best Aussie woody friend – Andrew Christie has excelled with photos from the air (drone) and on the water (he borrowed a clinker dinghy from the ‘Living Boat Trust’ and rowed around the docks). My kiwi woody friends –  Colin and Sheryl Pawson + Fiona Driver and Rod Marler + James Mortimer  have supplemented Andrew’s photos with more stunning photos from their camera’s. As an aside Andrew won the AWBF 2019 short film festival, with his entry ‘Wooden Boat Lunacy’ featuring a Billy Holmes built motorboat – Folly III. This short film has been featured on WW – link here    https://waitematawoodys.com/2018/11/08/folly-iii/
Rather than mix them all up – I thought it would cool to group them by photographer. There will be more to share with you over the next few days, seems like everyone has maxed out the mobile data packages 🙂
Remember you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them – Enjoy
Andrew Christie

 

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James Mortimer
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A Very Big Woody Weekend Down Under

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A Very Big Woody Weekend Down Under
This weekend is a very big woody weekend DOWNUNDER, we have the Lake Rotoiti Classic& Wooden Boat Parade in NZ and over in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia – it’s the bi-annual Australian Wooden Boat Festival.
Both events are huge and will be covered by waitematawoodys. Starting with the AWBF tomorrow (Monday). I have Woodys at both events sending in photos, including drone video footage, which brings a whole new perspective to our coverage.
The photos above come to us from Colin Pawson & Andrew Christie
Below is a short drone video of the fleet in what they call the Parade of Sail on the River Derwent. Many thanks to Australian woody, Andrew Christie for this video and tomorrows photo gallery.
P-CLASS P500 DAFFY DUCK
We cover everything on woodys – from mega events to a guy trying to track down the P-Class yacht his father built for him 55 years ago 🙂 Does anyone know the where-about of P500 (Duffy Duck) ? Paul Silva would love to know that she is still around and if possible have a look at her. He’s also keen to buy her – so woodys can anyone help Paul out?

Lady Gazelle + Woody Event This Weekend

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Lady Gazelle

LADY GAZELLE

Today’s launch was spotted by John Wicks, moored at Te Kouma Village, Coromandel Harbour, last month. John commented that she has obviously had a fair bit of work done and was looking quite smart.

While the name on the bow is Lady Gazelle, John said he would bet his pension that’s not what she was christened. Any one able to enlighten us on her background?

Input from Nathan Herbert –Yep built for Wally Stockley, I presume named ‘Moehau’?? Her original lines are available online as is this description:

“In 1958-9 we had built two displacement launches. For Wally Stockley, building contractor of Northcote, and ‘Swampy’ Walker, a towboat skipper. Though I had designed them you could have said they were a Couldrey design. They were identical in style to Bill’s 30 ft Cleone. They were to be the last that we would build in a conventional single skinned kauri with steam bent ribs, riveted, caulked and puttied and the last hulls that were built upright.”

 

08-02-2019 Input from Harold Kidd
We’ve been through the provenance of these sweet launches several times already on WW. Bill Couldrey designed CLEONE for Bert Follas in 1948 and Jim Young built her in 1950. As far as Bill was concerned, he had no part in the design of her subsequent near-clones except for KOTARE which he designed for Frank Wilkins in 1960 and which Frank built himself.
MOEHAU for Walker and GAZELLE for Stockley were Jim Young designed and built. Jim generously tips his hat to Bill though.
Some Woolley thinking going on here on Ken’s part, or just a reluctance to abandon 70 year old wrong anecdotal data?
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BIG WOODY WEEKEND –  This Weekend at Lake Rotoiti, Nth Island
Yes Woodys – another year slides by and its time to hit the shores of Lake Rotoiti for the 2019 Classic & Wooden Boat Parade weekend – sadly I won’t be there this year, but I’m sure someone will have the box brownie out and we will get to enjoy the weekend vicariously 🙂
If you are anywhere around the middle of the island, I encourage you to check it out – around 100 classic woodys is an impressive sight. To view previous years – search classic wooden boat parade in the WW search box.

A Woody Picnic – 1963 & Today

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A Woody Picnic

A collection of photos today recording the Devonport Yacht Club annual picnics, some are dateD March 1963 but there appears to be a mix of two venues – probably Islington Bay and Motuihe Island.

The photos come to us from Mitchell Hutchings fb page.

The challenge today is to Chris Leech to ID some of the craft. Nathan Herbert has already commented that in the 2nd photo above, the launch on the left is Lady Mary, before the addition of her dodger/wheelhouse + flying bridge.

Input from Chris Leech – 1st photo shows Sundowner being bought to the DYC for launching. The 2nd is of her afloat

The 3rd & 4th are of Southern Belle post the fire and as restored
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WAITANGI DAY PICNIC REMINDER TODAY – CYA Picnic at Motuihe Island today,  happening around midday – weather will decide which side. Look out for the big CYA flag on the beach. 
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Geoff & Warrick Bagnall’s Achilles Relaunched

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GEOFF & WARRICK BAGNALL’s ACHILLES RELAUNCHED
Saturday was a very special day for the Auckland woody community – we got to celebrate with Milford boatbuilder Geoff Bagnall as he re-launched the 31’ 1973 Roy Parris designed and built launch – Achilles.
Geoff has built and restored a lot of very fine craft in his 19 years at the Milford yard, but the refit of Achilles is extra special because she used to be his fathers boat. Amazingly Warrick was there to witness the launching and he looked very happy, on two fronts – seeing Achilles back family ownership and it was also his 90th birthday, a cake appeared and a bloke’ish version of happy birthday was sung 🙂
Geoff also served his apprenticeship under Roy Parris so the bond with the launch is deep.
Achilles will most likely be Geoff’s last big project – in a few days he will close the shed for the last time – that is a very sad day for us woody owners but this story is all about Warrick, Geoff and Achilles, more on the future of the shed later. Today we had 4 generations of the Bagnall family coming together for the party.
Over the last 18 months I have watched Geoff crafting over the refit and the standard of workmanship and design smarts is second to none, the man has a very good eye for size, proportion and just what looks right when it comes to boats. I have had the pleasure to have Geoff work on Raindance for over 10 years and she is now twice the boat she was when I bought her in terms of practicality and looks, as a result of Geoff’s input and craft.
Some details on the ’new’ Achilles – she now measures 31’ in length, is powered by a new Yanmar 200hp turbo that will she her dancing along very nicely. That stunning finish comes from being glassed (I quote Geoff- “I don’t want to be bloody working on her again in my life-time”) and she has all the latest features to make life aboard very comfortable. There are still a few wee jobs to complete but I think you’ll agree from the photos above and video below, Achilles is an impressive sight and a wonderful example of Geoff’s skills.

 

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Below is a selection of photos taken ‘in-the-shed’ during the refit.
As always – click on photos to enlarge 😉

To view a selection of launches built by Roy Parris – click this link https://waitematawoodys.com/tag/roy-parris/page/1/

Its Regatta Day – Get Off The Couch

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Its Regatta Day – Get Off The Couch
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The black & white photo above was taken 79 years ago at the 100th Auckland Anniversary Day Regatta. The woody front, right – PACIFIC, is owned by the Classic Yacht Association of NZ, Launch Captain – Nathan Herbert.
You could write a book on this woody, but to me the coolest thing is she was launched in 1917 & ownership remains in the same family – that is 102 years for those of your that failed school cert maths.
Today marks the 179th regatta & Pacific has recently undergone an extensive refit & in my eyes is presented ‘better than new’. Photos below to back that up 🙂
There are not many events in the world that are 179 years old & still running – so today, get off the couch & either hit the water in your boat or nab a prime waterfront viewing spot to see what makes Auckland, our harbour & classic woody fleet so special. Details on start times & viewing locations at the link below.
BIG WW STORY TOMORROW – PHOTO GALLERY FROM THE 2019 MAHURANGI REGATTA WEEKEND 
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MAHURANGI REGATTA – What you are missing

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MAHURANGI REGATTA – What you are missing

If you are reading WW today, chances are you are not at Mahurangi, so to make up for it today we have a totally stunning 16minute video filmed & edited by Roger Mills of the 2018 event. Roger filmed the footage using a drone.
It truly is breathtaking & what makes it even cooler is the coverage of the Classic Launch Parade. I recommend to watch the video in it entirety, but if you are time poor, skip to the 1:50 mark.
This footage could easily be re-branded as a tourism NZ movie.
Enjoy the film, link below – 2019 regatta photos will be on WW on Tuesday.