Category Archives: Spirit of Tradition

Mariki

Posted on by
Reply

Screen Shot 2018-11-17 at 6.25.23 AM

Screen Shot 2018-11-17 at 6.25.33 AM

MARIKI
Now it’s not often that I will do a story on a 1975 boat & even rarer when its built from ply & glassed over BUT Mariki just jumped out at me from her trademe listing. Her owner deserves a big tick in terms of how to ‘finish’ a vessel. The combination of colours, wood trim etc make Mariki look like she is moving even when sitting in a cradle.
Mariki is a 36’ Pelin Empress, & powered by a 1965, 80hp, Ford D series engine. While I’m sure she would lift her skirt & dance with a bigger donk, with a cruising speed of 10 knots she only sips 1 > 1.25 gallons per hour, combine that with fuel tank/s capacity of 160g, you can go a long way between top ups.
If the cabin looks a tad bear – the squabs are away being re-upholstered.
A lovely boat – perfect for a woody looking for a low (ish) maintenance classic (can’t believe I used the word).

Cruise To The Riverhead Hotel

Posted on by
3

P1220871_2

P1200186

Screen Shot 2018-11-08 at 2.10.56 PM
Screen Shot 2018-11-08 at 2.11.30 PM
Screen Shot 2018-11-08 at 2.11.43 PM
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 🙂
P1240008

Ella B 4 Sale

Posted on by
2

Bill's Boats 015

Bill's Boats 010

Bill's Boats 012

Bill's Boats 004

ELLA B – 4 Sale
 
I have been contacted by Taupo woody, Shawn Vennell regarding the very smart woody – Ella B.
 
Ella B is a ‘Monte Carlo’ design, barrel-back, classic inboard mahogany run-about. She was built in NZ by Bill Brassington, & measures 24’6” with a 7’6” beam.
The zoom zoom is via a brand new 5.7 litre 350 BFI marine V8 Kodiak engine complete with a Borg Warner 71c model 1.1 velvet drive transmission. The build quality & attention to detail is amazing + all components in the build were brand new, with the trailer being custom made by Bill.
 
Unfortunately due to health issues, Ella B is reluctantly for sale. This is a turn-key boat, fill the tank & you are off. I suspect the seller is very realistic in terms of a price, interested parties can contact Bill’s son Glen, via email  ellaco@xtra.co.nz to discuss Ella B in more detail.
 
Ella B has appeared on WW b4 – more details here.
 

 

Waitemata Woodys hits 4,000,000 views and celebrates with a gallery of over 100 classic wooden boat photos

Posted on by
21

Screen Shot 2018-10-23 at 9.27.39 PM

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
Screen Shot 2018-10-23 at 10.40.39 PM

Boat or Block of Flats?

Posted on by
5

Screen Shot 2018-10-24 at 8.39.38 PM

Screen Shot 2018-10-24 at 8.41.52 PM

Boat or Block of Flats?
Its been a while since we had a contender for the ‘Boat that looks like a block of flats’ award – the above, shoots to the top of the list. And that is sad because someone has spent a lot of money on this spirit of tradition vessel, in all the wrong places.
Some details – build year is 2006, her specs are 52.5’ in length, with a 14’9” beam. And yes – she is wood. Her zoom zoom is via a Fiat Iveco Aifo 220 hp diesel that will see her cruising at 8.5 knots.

2018 Classic Yacht & Launch Exhibition – The New Zealand Sailing Dinghy

Posted on by
2

P1030700

P1030660

P1030690 2

P1030732

2018 Classic Yacht & Launch Exhibition – The New Zealand Sailing Dinghy

This years Classic Yacht & Launch Exhibition, hosted by Tino Rawa Trust, at Karanga Plaza in Auckland’s Wynyard Quarter, was a 3 day celebration of the New Zealand Sailing Dinghy.
The event showcased many of the successful designs that created our world class sailors & formed the backbone of your sailing clubs.
I went along on Friday morning to the opening morning tea 🙂 & rubbed shoulders with some of our wooden boating legends, these morning teas are always a special treat. We were entertained by another of Robert Brookes talks – always beautiful delivered & an entertaining insight into Auckland’s sailing past. If you have not seen Robert’s & the Brooke families latest book ‘Memories – Roads of Destiny’ (WW link below) grab a copy at Boat Books in Westhaven – its a must have / read.
I’ll let the photos tell the story of the show – enjoy.
Brooke Book Link

Matariki

Posted on by
1

Screen Shot 2018-10-06 at 6.07.30 PM

Screen Shot 2018-10-06 at 6.07.46 PM

Matariki
This 16′ launch has got Lake Rotoiti written all over her. With a build year of 1973, the only reason she gets to make an appearance on WW is her very salty looks.
Her trademe listing (thanks Ian McDonald) states she was built by A. Westrupp in double diagonal timber & then glassed.
Zoom zoom is from a rebuilt MTU 30hp diesel that sees her cruising at 5 knots. Included is a road trailer, so easily re-locatable from her current home in the Marlborough Sounds.
Ps Nice ass 🙂
And below, something to watch while you are having your morning brew. The video tells the story of the re-launch of the British speedster Bluebird, its a great watch & a just shows what can be achieved when people have a vision.

Skacen / Skagen

Posted on by
5

Screen Shot 2018-09-19 at 9.13.05 am

Screen Shot 2018-09-19 at 9.14.40 am

SKACEN / SKAGEN
Now this wee ship (she is a ship) has been on WW before but she is such a honey & now for sale so she deserves an encore 🙂
Skacen measures 36’ with a beam of 10’7” & draws 4’11”. Zoom zoom comes from a 5LW Gardner (of course).
She was built by Salthouse in 1973, with a carvel kauri hull. You will see from the above photos she is very well fitted out with lots of character.
In the photos you may have picked up something strange – on the port side her name is Skagen & on the starboard its Skacen ?
As Ian McDonald commented when he sent me the trademe link – not many boats of her size have a walk-in engine room.
She would be perfect for a couple wanting mooch around the NZ coast in almost any weather, as she spent over 10 years in commercial fishing on New Zealand’s East Coast.
Woody – David Glen has advised that she was moored in the Whangapoua Harbour, off Matarangi Wharf, for the best part of the last 20 years. She was owned by a local resident who worked in the local forests. She caught David’s eye at Matarangi in 1990’s and she appeared to be well maintained, but seldom used.
And speaking of David Glen, he sent me yesterday the photo below from Amsterdam of this lovely, what I assume is a hire boat. Loving the top & down windows.
IMG_3243

Kotimana

Posted on by
2

117

116

IMG_1632

IMG_1633

KOTIMANA
On my last visit to the NZ Traditional Boatbuilding School I got chatting to one of the trustees – Kere Kemp & he casually dropped in that he was building a Dark Harbor 17 1/2’. Thats cool I thought & then I discover its being built in Port Hadlock out on the Olympic peninsula oppposite Seattle, Washington USA.
The yachts name is Kotimana – Maori for scotch thistle in recognition of Kere’s mother – Scottish, and his dad – Maori.
Kere commissioned her in September 2016 at the end of a post-retirement year at the North West School of Wooden Boatbuilding in Port Hadlock.
She was built by the classes of 2017 and 2018, & was launched at Point Hudson Marina, Port Townsend on August 29th. She is heading down under but with a few stops on the way – firstly Kotimana will be on display at the 42nd Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival, second weekend of September and will then head via container to the 2019 Australian Wooden Boat Festival in early 2019 before finally making it home to Auckland in mid February 2019.
For those of you scratching your head thinking “what is a Dark Harbour 17-1/2 below is a description excerpted from a pre-launch write up that the NWSWB wrote when announcing the launch.
Dark Harbour 17-1/2

Originally designed for the Manchester Yacht Club in Massachusetts USA and called the Manchester 17, the first boats were built by the Rice Bros in 1908. As the design’s popularity spread it acquired a number of different names including the Bar Harbor 17 and eventually the Dark Harbor 17-1/2. The plans for this yacht are credited to BB Crowninshield and were completed by R. N. Burbank, an employee of the firm at the time.

 
The Dark Harbor 17-1/2 is a pure sailing machine of great beauty, but large enough to offer considerably more comfort through a larger cockpit well and a small cuddy cabin. Low freeboard combined with a wide, self-bailing cockpit well that seats you “down in” the boat puts you very close to the water. The lovely, slender hull lines, long ends, deep draft and large rig provide wonderfully sweet feel in this powerful, fast, wet, responsive and handy boat.

BB Crowninsheild was a US Naval Architect from the late 1800’s / early 1900’s who designed a number of boats including an America’s Cup contender and the largest ever steel hulled sailing boat (just prior to the introduction of the steam engine to sail boats).
Kerry commented that he fell in love with the lines of a Dark Harbor back in 2010 and decided that he would ultimately build one for himself.  Sanity eventually crept in and he commissioned her instead – Kerry was able to do some work on her prior to his move to New Zealand in mid 2017.
I’ll get a sneak preview of her at the Australian Wooden Boat Festival in Feb 2019 so will update this story with more photos.
Kotimana will be a magnificent additional to Auckland’s classic fleet.

Neptune

Posted on by
1

NEPTUNE

Neptune is a 39’ John Gladden designed ex work boat / converted trawler & is now a potential live aboard.

She was extended .6m eight years ago & has a 11’5” beam & draws 5’2”.

Her trademe listing is very light on details, the only other things I can advise is that she was built in 1982 & made of wood.

( thanks to Ian McDonald for the listing heads up)