
ANI (BRIEF AFFAIR)


ANI (BRIEF AFFAIR)




NIMBUS II – 50th Birthday Party
Just before Christmas I was chatting to Allan Hooper regarding 23’ yacht Nimbus II that he built in 1970 and how Allan and his wife Pamela were planning ‘re-union’ of previous owners (details below). I asked Allan to drop me a note with details – in typical Allan Hooper style, the subsequent note is both perfectly written and very informative, so I reproduced it below.
The photographs above show Nimbus II sailing off the Northland coast in 1971, on her mooring earlier this month and the original construction drawing complete with glue stains 🙂
Allan has an armada of vessels, in a later WW story I will expose his addiction 🙂
Nimbus 11 Built by Allan Hooper
When I met my wife Pamela I was building Nimbus and when she said she would like to help I thought this is my kind of girl. So we have spent more than 50yrs building and sailing a succession of yachts and we now own a little launch which I have just finished altering.
We thought a get together next year of previous owners of Nimbus 2 would be a nice way to celebrate, if anyone is interested please contact Allan Hooper at hoopersnz@gmail.com
Brief history:
Whilst serving my apprenticeship I started building Nimbus 11. She is 23 feet. She was designed by John Hakker in 1957 while he was working on a hydro scheme in the South Island. I opted to cold mould the hull using 3 skins of 3/16” kauri. Each skin was glued with resorcinol glue and stapled using a hand operated staple gun. Each of the 250,000 staples was then pulled out again when the glue was dry. The finished hull was then skinned with glass cloth. There are laminated frames around the bulkheads and the floors and knees etc are generously proportioned.
I modified the keel and had a spade rudder which reduced the wetted surface, greatly improving her performance in the light and made the yacht easy to handle.
With no engine we had a lot of fun sailing everywhere. Once we dropped the spinnaker in the Town Basin Whangarei and rounded up onto a pile after carrying it all the way up the river.
The water tank was a 20L container under the sink with a pump up to the sink. Before we sold her I fitted a toilet, the new owner was insistent that his wife would not go without it.
Subsequent owners have sailed her offshore including New Plymouth to Moololaba singlehanded race and Chris and Tracey McGuire cruised as far as Vanuatu. Chris fitted a small diesel inboard and all the equipment required to go offshore.
Currently Nimbus 11 is on a mooring at Scotts landing on the Mahurangi. Although the varnished coamings have gone almost all of the deck fittings are original.
WW READERSHIP OVER THE XMAS / NY PERIOD
Incredible numbers of Woodys logging in and following the WW stories over the past 2 weeks, I thought I’d be able to lie low for a few days but with the numbers showing up each day, I was encouraged to keep taping the laptop keys. I think its a reflection of the uptake in mobile devices in the last few years – everyone now seems to have a device that allows them to keep in touch via the on-line platform. Thats good and bad – we all need to relax more. One of my new year resolutions is to switch all my social media (twitter, facebook,messenger etc) to pull only on messages. That means I have to check in to see if I have new content sent to me, as compared to the social media channels pushing content to me automatically. Note: I still get emails and WW alerts ‘live’ 🙂




ASTROLABE – A Peek Down Below


A Spirit of Tradition Woody
Today’s launch was designed American designer – Ted Brewer and appears to be based on the traditional Maine lobster boat. She was built in New Zealand in c.1989 from strip plank cedar epoxied and glassed. She measures 30’ overall with a beam of 9’1″ and draws 2’4”. A fully reconditioned Nissan SD22 provides the forward motion.
Her tme listing (thanks Ian McDonald) is very impressive and she appears to be good value for the asking price. Home port is Kerikeri.
WIN YOURSELF A COPY OF THE HOT OF THE PRESS BOOK – K CLASS
This could be the final WW competition before Santa slides down the chimney. As always – entry is via email only to waitematawoodys@gmail.com
Entries close midnight Friday 20-12-2019 . All correct entries will go into the draw for a copy of the book – K Class by Jenni Mence. Plus a bobby prize – a waitematawoodys t-shirt, drawn from all email entries received – correct or not.
Q waitematawoodys editorial assistant – Flora McKenzie shares her name with a pioneer Auckland business women from the waterfronts past. What line of business was Flora in? Remember – enter via email only.


DOLPHYN – Sailing Sunday








Mahanui
It’s not often that boats the size and condition of Mahanui come on the market – normally they get offered for sale at a stage in their life cycle when both them and their owner are at the end of a long relationship and the vessel is showing its age. The status of Mahanui is what I would call ’surplus to needs’ – out of the blue, her owners made the decision to buy a bigger boat, suited to extended family cruising, so woodys – Mahanui is on the market.
She presents in pristine condition – her owner is one of your most fanatical owners. Only the best wooden boat trades people have worked on her and everything is the best of the best. Built in 1977 by Keith Atkinson, designed by Raymond C Hunt, Mahanui is 42’ long, has a beam of 12’4” and draws approx.. 3’. As originally launched she was named Jacinta II and was several feet shorter in length. Mahanui is hard chine kauri plywood, glassed over hull and top sides. Her first owner was Trevor Lindsay and he owner her for 25 years. Several owners later she had undergone a name change to Mahanui and received some ‘cosmetic’ work to her length, stern and flybridge.
Fast forward to 2012 and the current owners purchased Mahanui and set about correcting the defects the pre-purchase survey had revealed. This work was undertaken by one of the best woody boatbuilding yards in NZ – Greg Lees Boatbuilders – Sandspit. On the way to Sandspit one of the original motors (BMC 98’s) blew its fuel pump and closer examination of the motors indicated the owner either had to spend a lot of money on reconditioning very old motors or bite the bullet and replace them. They replaced them with twin Perkins Sabre M135’s with Newage PRM gear boxes. She was in the shed at Sandspit for almost 9 months and during that time the hull was dried out, treated inside and then white gel coated, new exhausts fitted, new fuel and water hoses and filters, completely rewired, new BEP switchboard, LED lights throughout, faulty instruments replaced, complete overhaul of refrigeration, new batteries, re-splining and strengthening coamings, all chromed brass removed and redone, bowsprit and anchoring system upgraded, all deck rails removed and refastened, new controls and cables, new skin fittings, other wood work, most of the internal panelling replaced, flybridge interior completely re-furbished, coamings back to bare wood and Uroxsys varnished, topsides and flybridge repainted, hull taken back to glass re-epoxied and new anti-foul, new electronics and autopilot. View more here
Fast forward again to 2016 and her owners had booked Mahanui into Greg Lees yard again, this time for a wee facelift. The canopy over Mahanui’s cockpit was replaced with a permanent structure and in my WW eyes the finished article is a perfect look and fit.
Read details & view photos of the work undertaken at this link https://waitematawoodys.com/2016/10/25/23212/
In 2018 her decks were redone and glassed + re Uroxsys coamings. As an added bonus her owners fitted a silicon anti-foul wrap which has a 5 year (from fit date) warranty.
Full details on specs are available to interested parties but in a nutshell – cruising speed is 13 knots with a max of 16 knots.
Mahanui is offered as a hop board and go boating vessel – a snapshot of her package includes – dinghy, outboard, cockpit table and chairs, fenders, cutlery, pots, pans, glassware, tools (particular to the vessel), almost a spare of everything, cushions etc etc.
In the first instance – enquires to waitematawoodys@gmail.com (SOLD)




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Westhaven Marlin