ALLERGY – Auckland’s Most Engaging Classic Craft – Offered For Sale
Allergy was launched in 1985, built by Kerry Huntington for prominent Auckland businessman Alan Gibbs. Her design is ex Pete Culler / Denis Ganley and length over all is 58’ with a beam of 14’, so woodys she is a rather big girl, and after Auckland sailmaker Dave Giddens purchased her she has acquired a reputation as one of the most hospitable boats in the Hauraki Gulf.
As you would expect being owned by a sail maker Allergy sports an impressive sail wardrobe but most days she slots comfortably into the motor-sailer division. Forward motion (>10 knots) is via a Ford 130hp diesel, that was installed new in 1985 when launched.
The craft was designed and fitted out for cruising in comfort with a separate owners cabin + 2nd double berth and upwards of 3 single berths. 6’6” cabin headroom and large dining area, that I have seen 10 seated at dinner. The cockpit would be one of the most comfortable roomy area I have experienced on a vessel, a reflection of the trade skills of owner. Her ample side decks allow for morning exercise laps + perfect for the pets, kids could even bring a small pony 🙂 With her center board up, she only draws approx. 3′, perfect for securing the best anchoring spot in the bay.
If todays story sounds like a for sale notice – it is, after 30 years of ownership, Dave Gidden has asked the Wooden Boat Bureau to identify the next custodian for Allergy – so woodys if you or anyone you know is looking for the penultimate floating holiday / getaway venue – Allergy is it. And it is priced to sell. Serious enquiries to waitematawoodys@gmail.com
Todays WW story hopefully will solve the question – “where are we going for Xmas” for one lucky family.
28-11-2022 UPDATE – some ask me does it sail – of course , see below
On Friday we featured the launch – Spindrift and asked for more details – well as you can see from the above photo gallery we certainly got an answer 🙂 Firstly Spindrift is a new build, launched in early December 2021 – designed by Gary Underwood (design #71) and owner built by Hilton and Melva Ward. To quote Hilton she is a 10 metre, multi-chine ply passage maker powered by a 35hp Beta (Kubota) engine.
Hilton has a very informative blog on the whole back story from design to first cruise, link below. I have just ‘cherry picked’ a selection of photos for todays story. https://thenewspindrift.blogspot.com/?m=1
Spindrift calls Ngunguru Estuary, Northland home, but there are plans for some serious cruising this summer. The build commenced in early 2016, but Underwood did the design work two years prior – see sketches below + model Hilton made to see how it would look in real life.
As always – click on photos to enlarge 😉
01-06-2024 – photo below ex Natalie Collinson fb anchored at Ngunguru
Pointed the car north yesterday for a fleeting visit to one of my favorite woody haunts – Whangaroa Harbour in the Far North. Always a great display of classic craft either tied up at the marina or moored in the bay.
Terrible internet connection and battery life disappearing fast – so I’ll add names to the vessels when I’m back in the big smoke 🙂
On the weekends Woodys Classic Weekend cruise to the Clevedon Cruising Club I had the services of a cabin boy (relax, he’s my neibour) so I handed the wheel to him for most of the trip up the river. This freed me up to snap some of the moored wooden craft, I’m sure a few might be f/glass or even steel – but still an amazing collection ’semi-hidden’ away, that us Auckland marina dwellers never see.
Enjoy the tour. AND make sure you check out the last photo below – seems the CYA A Class skippers have been playing bumper boats again.
Seems the CYA Classic A Class Fleet Are Playing Crash & Bash Again
One of the classic launch owners returning to their berth in Westhaven from the weekends Woodys Clevedon cruise – spotted a wee hole in Little Jim. Comment was it had the dimensions of a bow-sprite.
Fingers crossed the culprit has good insurance………… A review of the RNZYS results page for Saturdays racing shows two classics with a DNF alongside their names – being Little Jim and Rawene, chances are that tells you the other vessel.
Things like this probably contribute to why only approx. 6% of the CYA classic yacht fleet race (outside of one-off events like the Mahurangi Regatta) their craft. Too much testosterone is a bad thing with a car steering wheel or yacht tiller in your hand – then again maybe it was too much oestrogen this time?
6.45am – The StartThe magic hour for boat photography
Heading up the river
Dave Giddens – Auctioneer Supremo
WOODYS CLASSIC CLEVEDON CRUISE REPORT – Sept 2022
Just back from a near perfect weekend cruising with a great bunch of classic wooden boat enthusiasts, up the Wairoa River to the Clevedon Cruising Club for an overnight shindig.
The weekend had all the right ingredients – great weather, cool boats, nice people + mouth-watering food, that always = a winner. Todays photo gallery comes to us from my cameras and Jason Prew’s new out of the box iPhone 14 Pro (I need one, I’m buying one).
By now regular WW readers will be familiar with the format of the weekend – we meet off the entrance to the Wairoa River and then weave our way up river to the Clevedon Cruising Club. The flotilla berths at the CCC dock, in front of their clubhouse, then we ‘open’ the boats for club member to view. Happy hour tends to start early up the river, and this weekend it was even earlier. Later in the day we retire to the clubrooms for a shared BBQ dinner, and live music.
This year the club organised a number of raffles and a mystery auction – the club and Woodys collectively raised over $3,500 for the new fuel jetty. Well done to everyone involved – I indirectly won a new bilge pump (my cabin boy, bid on a mystery package and one of the included items was the pump – and my bonus – he doesn’t own a boat)
Boats participating in the cruise were – Allergy, Awariki, Lady Clare, Lady Ellen, Merita, Mokoia, My Girl, Ngaio, Ngarimu, Raindance, Smooth Operator, Trinidad, Waikaro.
I’ll let the photos tell the story. Below are two videos which highlight the two extremes of classic wooden craft – Raindance at 7.5 knots and Jason Prew’s – My Girl, doing est. 24 knots 🙂 Thanks to Jason and Ant Smit for the footage.
As always – click on photos to enlarge 😉 ENJOY. Details on more Woodys Classic events below.
Ps that dessert plate wasn’t mine and I’m too nice a person to name the owner…… and equally no story as to why there is a photo of a skipper dipping wet on his duck board 🙂
Todays 89’ woody motor sailer – Galerna, started life in Denmark where she was built in 1973, so falls into the ’spirit-of-tradition’ woody family.
In the top photo sent to me back in Jan 2022 by Richard Amery we see her berthed at the Viaduct in Auckland. How Galerna come to be in NZ I do not know but Ken Ricketts reports that she had a major refit by Titan Marine in Auckland in 2015.
Built to take a pounding, oak planks and frames, her hull measures nearly 14” and has a stainless steel ice skirt, all that plus a 5 cyl. B&W 550 hp diesel see her hitting the scales at 190 tonne. Galerna’s cruising range is 4000 miles at 8 knots.
From the photos sent in by KR we can see that she is equipped for expended cruising in grandeur. Can anyone tell us how she came to call NZ home?
Recently WW was contacted by Ron Hackett regarding a project that has had an incubation period of 64 years, its good read so I’ll let Ron tell the story. But to give you a heads up Ron is looking for a custodian to take on the project.
BOUNTY – 34’ sail boat in frame.
“In 1958, a Kauri log was purchased by a young apprentice joiner, named Maurice Fleming. His dream was finally coming true! He started a notebook, and carefully recorded his purchases. The log, from Waihou valley, near Kaikohe, cost 338 pounds. It was railed from there to Whau Valley, Whangarei, and that cost 24 pounds, 10 shillings. [The mill there was Parkers, and sawing the log cost 56 pounds, six shillings and sixpence, producing 5,268 super feet of first class heart kauri.
Maurice continued to work for his father as a joiner, and set up the vessel at his home, working on it as he could. The designer of the ‘Bounty’, Ken Low, was keen to help as well. Ken was a well known boat builder in Whangarei, and with his brother Ron, owned the Low Bros Boatyard in Ewing Rd. Ken had learned his trade with Bailey & Lowe in Auckland. Ron did mainly the engineering side of the business, and another brother, Norman (known as Nip), was a tug-master in New Plymouth and Auckland.
In Te Puna Inlet, Bay of Islands, there lives a vessel built by Bailey and Lowe, in 1911, ‘Waitemata’, a 55’ pilot launch for the Waitemata Harbour. The construction of the Bounty is the same as that used in Waitemata, so it’s clear that Ken designed the ‘Bounty’ to be built with the same methods he had learned at Bailey and Low – three skins on stringers, two diagonals and one fore and aft, plus a sawn bilge shelf. Ken was well known for designing well-balanced, sea-kindly boats. People who knew him had great respect for his skills in designing and building, and many considered him to be one of the best wooden boat builders this country has seen. Ken also designed the sail plan for the ‘Bounty’, as a fractional rig. He knew what would suit ‘Bounty’ best, and it has been said that the sail plan was ahead of it’s time. Ken was a perfectionist. Maurice was working under Ken’s guidance, who helped when he could. Maurice’s standards were also very high, anyone building their dream boat will understand! He wasn’t happy with the first pouring of the keel, and set about doing it a second time, and it came out perfect. The keel is about four and a half Ton. The backbone and floors are all fastened with bronze bolts, floors being 2” thick. There are two bulkheads, and a number of moulds, with the stringers let into the bulkheads, all being perfectly fair. Breast hook and quarter knees are grown pohutakawa, and the beams are fitted.
Unfortunately, Maurice had a major setback of a personal nature. He seemed to go into a depression which he never really recovered from. He hung up his tools, and all work on the ‘Bounty’ stopped. Eventually, when Maurice was ‘getting on’ and was in a retirement home, it was time to tidy up his affairs.
I bought the vessel and timber about 1997 for $27,000, fully intending to complete her, but I have had too many other projects on.
The ‘Bounty’ is a 34’ vessel, at present in frame. All of the Kauri planking milled in 1958 is available. The fore and aft planks are full length, all planking is machined, and the rabbits are all cut.There are a couple of teak planks for cabin coamings.
I feel this vessel is an important part of our history. Aspiring wooden boat builders, of whom there are currently very few, could be encouraged to study the construction and fine workmanship, and even to work on the vessel. Today it’s a rare thing to smell heart kauri in a steam box. Budding boat builders don’t have many opportunities to work on such a vessel.”
Todays a shout out to anyone that is this person or knows someone that is – looking for a work-life change. If you have a CV you’re probably not who we are looking for 🙂
In no particular order does this sound like you –
• Good practical hands on general skills
• Not afraid to roll your sleeves up and just get the job done
• Sense of humour
• Looking for full time / part time / flexible hours
• Age open – young > old, its all about attitude
We offer –
• Small passionate team
• Central Auckland location
• Working railway slip – one of few left in Auckland
Back in May 2020 we ran a story on the spirit of tradition classic launch – Caravel (link below), at the time the story would have broken the WW record for the number of people emailing me about a boat. Seems she ticked all the boxes for people considering doing laps of NZ in their retirement 🙂 Stunning photos ex Dean Wright at the link + the photo today is Deans also. https://waitematawoodys.com/2021/11/30/caravel/
We subsequently learnt that Caravel was built c.2004 in Picton, strip planked but using an unusual boat building timber – poplar. Fast forward 10 years and she was hauled out at Tauranga being re-skinned with double diagonal kauri and glassed, boat builder Alan Craig commented that she was now built like a brick-out-house.
Some details – designed by Bob Salthouse, 42’ in length, beam of 14’6” and draws 5’. Built by Miller and Tunnage, Picton.
Forward motion is from a John Deere 135hp diesel that gives her a comfortable cruising speed of 8 knots.
