Category Archives: Sub 28′

LAKE ROTOITI 2016 CLASSIC & WOODEN BOAT CALENDARS

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LAKE ROTOITI 2016 CLASSIC & WOODEN BOAT CALENDARS

Once again waitematawoodys, Chris Miller & myself are rapped to have worked with the Lake Rotoiti Classic and Wooden Boat Assoc. on the production of their 2016 calendar.
The calendar is chocker full of photos from the amazingly popular 2015 Classic & Wooden Boat Parade. The calendars make excellent Christmas presents for those ‘hard to buy for’ friends & are great value – $10 for 1, or $8 each for 5 or more.  There is a limited amount printed so get in quick, last year they sold out very quickly.

If any woodys are interested in buying contact Rachel Jamieson via this email link

zea.rachel@gmail.com
Postage is $2.40 for up to 7 calendars, $5 for more than 7 or courier ($6 North Island $7 South Island  –  RD extra).
Payment is via direct credit – please use your surname as reference and email Rachel when you make the payment. Remember to add the postage 😉

The bank account number is:    12 3155 0140546 00  Lake Rotoiti Classic and Wooden Boat Assoc.

This is one of those cool win/win situations – its a great way to support the wooden boating movement & you get something back i.e. a cool calendar. Order now.
ps sorry for the slightly wonky cover photo – Rachel needs a few photography 101 tips 🙂

Capri IV

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CAPRI IV
photos & details ex Michael Fann

Danger – Alert – Not A True Woody 😉

Today’s post breaks one of the fundamental ww rules, it has to be wood………….. but sometimes rules need to be broken (not too often).

Capri IV is a Mason Marine Clipper 24 built in the early 1970’s & if you believed the company hype back in those days “the finest powerboat in the world”.
In recent weeks I have had the pleasure of sharing some time with the her present owner, Michael Fann & her previous owner, Tim Evill. Both gents are wonderful, passionate classic boaties but I understand that it was the owner prior to Tim, a Taupo resident who painstakingly restored her.
Capri IV is 24′ long with a beam of 8′, these days she is powered by a Volvo Penta 5.7L V8 that has her comfortably cruising at 22>24 knots & topping out at 32>34 knots -thats quick for a boat of her size. I imagine that Michael is on first name terms with the the fuel jetty jockey 🙂

I have dropped a copy of the May 1971 boat test from Sea Spray magazine into a slide show for viewing, see below. Click to pause & enlarge.

When launched the Clipper 24′ had a quite a revolutionary launching set-up with a sliding cradle trailer (see photo), further proof of the build skills of the team at Mason Marine, Capri IV is still using the same trailer today – thats over 40 years later.

Some of the sales advertisements make amusing reading, as do the features on Tony Mason.

Enjoy.

Sea Spray – May 1971

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Remember to click images to enlarge 😉

 

 

Mermerus M16 – Sailing Sunday

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MERMERUS M16 Sailing Sunday
photo ex Mac Taylor collection

The above photo of the M-class Mermerus planning at speed is proof that you do not need composite construction, carbon fibre & space-age  fabrics to go like the stink & most likely have the crew bricking themselves 🙂
Now if you believe Ron Carters 1954 book, ‘The Glory of Sail’, she was built in 1939 by Gainor Jackson of Devonport, Auckland.

I’m sure one of the anoraks will be able to confirm this & enlighten us further.

Update 01-12-2015 The photos below were sent in by harold Kidd ex Robin Elliott’s 1994 book ‘ Emmie – 70 Years of M-Class Yachting’

The first photo below shows Mermerus broaching, at this stage she was heading straight for the photographers boat & everyone (including the photographer) was in trouble. With skill (luck?) she passed inches from where the photographer was standing, prior to dropping flat onto the deck 🙂

The 2nd two photos shows Mermerus safely through the gap – Maui was not so lucky.

02-12-2015 Input from Robin Elliott

OK ….Opening Day 1946 – in a hard westerly.
Maui, in her first race and flying, had already capsized, and Manaia had broken her mast, had tidied up her broken spars and sails and was anchored awaiting a tow. Mermerus, sailed by 16-year old Phillip Jackson, has started about 10 minutes late and was miles behind the fleet. She had blundered into all this this carnage, got hit by a puff and bore away, but too far, because the Sandspit off Devonport was dead ahead – it was low tide and running aground at speed was not a good thing.

Their crew would appear to have been all over the place because the sudden course correction to starboard to avoid the Sandspit made the spinnaker sheet hand slip to leeward, still holding the sheet, where, so I was told, he got his fingers jammed in the spinnaker block. The extra few metres of sheet allowed the spinnaker pole to sky and lift the bow. Control is absent at this point. And …. Phillip’s older brother Gainor, has just spotted a Blue Boat dead ahead !!!

Max Frommherz of Marine Photos, standing on the foredeck of the Blue Boat, takes this one iconic photograph. The only one he took in the entire sequence, but what a photo!

Mermerus is now heading straight for the Blueboat. The crew are at sixes and sevens and all over each other as the sheet hand releases his fingers from the spinnaker block, lets go the sheet and the kite flogs like crazy.

Ian Mason, photographer for the NZ Herald, standing next to Max takes this next photo.

Mermerus now has major problems and very little time to fix them. Both photographers go flat to the deck as Mermerus’ spinnaker pole flies off the mast and arcs around the forestay, zipping over their heads (Ian Mason told me he still remembered the ‘woosh’ 🙂 ) as Mermerus rounds the bow of the Blue boat and head for a very narrow gap between the disabled yachts.

Ian Mason has a snazzy fast German camera and gets the next two shots away as Mermerus threads the needle between Maui and Manaia.

Note the first of these last images: the crew of Maui have ducked for cover as Mermerus slaloms through the gap, the man on the stern just can’t get far enough away from the flailing kite pole, and you can just see the fingers of the crewman amidships flat to the top planking and clinging on to the deck. In the second image, they surface, safe and relieved, after the mad flailing beast has gone through.

 

ONLY 1 DAY LEFT TO ORDER WW T-SHIRTS BEFORE XMAS

Remember to get your order in – limited print run, full details here https://waitematawoodys.com/2015/11/22/waitematawoodys-t-shirts/

 

Waikato Woodys – Sailing Sunday #2

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Easter regatta, Hamilton YC
H11 Joyful (Judith Le Clerc) 1948
Sardines in a mullety. Judith & friends, Auckland

Waikato Woodys – Sailing Sunday #2
photos & details from Judith Le Clerc

Today’s post follows on from a previous sailing sunday post on the trailer boat scene on Hamilton Lake in the late 1940’s. See captions for details.

A wee bonus – The Fife 23-Metre beauty Cambria has just completed a 12 month refit which included stripping back the fibreglassed hull to reveal the planking and replace those lengths that were beyond repair. Here is a short clip of her launch.

An Evill Boat

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An Evill Boat

I posted a few weeks ago about a 14′ clinker motorboat, built in 1914 by Miller & Tunnage that was heading north, in fact to Waiheke Island, Auckland.
You can read all about the history behind the boat here  https://waitematawoodys.com/2015/06/23/classic-clinker-motorboat/

Today post documents its journey to Waiheke Island.

It all started when Tim Evill called me & told me he had bought the clinker off trademe & he was having the boat & her trailer trucked up to Auckland. A few days later Tim & I have borrowed my wife’s ute, she’s a landscape gardener 😉  & Tim & I are driving around Penrose looking for a freight depot. We hook her up & head off to Bayswater to launch her, the plan being to put her on a berth at the marina for a week to take up (been out of the water for 2>3 yrs). You know what they say about plans – ‘if it can go wrong, it will’ – we backed her down the ramp & straight away the water starts p_ssing in – big time, a bucket & a big manual bilge pump could not keep up. So before she sank we started the single banger motor & did a few circles in her & popped back on the trailer.

Time for a team talk, I suggest to Tim if she was mine I would be taking her up to Pam & George at the Whangateau Traditional Boat yard & letting her sit in the back tidal estuary for a few weeks. So Tim heads back to Waiheke & the boats parked on my front lawn.

Next we borrow the ute again & head off on a road trip to Whangateau. We safely deposited her into Pam & George’s experienced hands, then I had a mission dragging Tim away from the shed & Laughing Lady (the boat not Pam). Over the next few weeks Pam sent us photos & trip reports (laps of the bay).
Tim collected her this week on a totally foul day & caught the car ferry to Waiheke Island. Home is now Sandy Bay so keep an eye out her.

Now I’m sick of calling her ‘the boat’, ‘she’ etc – so how about we suggest a few names for her – with Tim’s surname (Evill) it could be amusing – the best one wins a ww t-shirt.
And b4 you say anything Jason P, I have yours on board Raindance & will give it to you at Patio Bay. Just finalizing the logo & will be printing more – details soon.

Bayswater Launching

Love the CYA bucket
Still smiling

Back In Devonport

Dropping Off At Whangateau

Got to love those front towballs
Old Salts

On Holiday at WTB

Collection Day

At Home At Last

Post an application of the magic Houghton bronze polish

 

Mullet Boat SoS + CYA News

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Mullet Boat SoS
photos ex Tom Kidd & Nick Atkinson facebook page

Today’s post is a cry out to the owner of a Mullet boat that appears to have been abandoned at Te Atatu. The story goes something like this – a guy turns with the boat on a trailer 4 weeks ago & launches her at the bottom of Oliver Road so her planks could take up before he sailed it to Waiheke Island. Then he disappears & no one has seen him since. Talk is it will be chopped up soon if its not taken away.

Kidd Family (Harold & Tim) Input – the owner may be Mike Knuckley. And she was (tbc) built in 1904 by Fred Mann, sail # I-7. There is confusion as to her actual build date as there were 2 identical Mistletoe’s, one built in 1904 & the other in 1913.

So woodys – anyone know the owner? if so give them are rather big nudge.

Time For Some CYA News
See flyer below for the annual Patio Bay Weekend – the biggest & best event on the CYA calendar. Click to enlarge.

Also below is the latest edition of the Classic Journal (if hard to read, blue link below will download a copy)

Issue 103

22′ Mullet Boat – Sailing Sunday

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22′ Mullet Boat – Sailing Sunday
photos from ex Mac Taylor Collection

The above photo shows an unidentified 22′ mullet boat in full flight on Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour. The crew have an impressive amount of canvas up & unlike the photo below are in full control 🙂

Mandalay

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MANDALAY
photos ex Russell Ward

I last saw this little cutie 4sale on trademe back in Oct 2007. Back then it stated she was built in Auckland in 1932 but went into dry storage during WWII until 1986. Around then she was purchased by Dave Jackson of Northcote & recommissioned by ex Navy dockyard shipwright Jeff Cook. During the recommissioning she was re-powered with a 23hp Yanmar 3 cyl. inboard diesel, which pushed her along at 6 knots. Built with full length planks, edge fitted & riveted to ribs without caulking, decks are glass over ply. When advertised in 2007 she was moored in the Clevedon River & came with a road trailer.
The other day Russell sent in the above photos that were from a friend who owned her, possibly the trademe seller, during their ownership they kept her at Coromandel & the Waikato River. Russell commented that the friend believed that just prior to the WWII storage she had sunk at her moorings.

Its believed Mandalay is now in the Bay of Islands. Can any woodys report on where she is now & any more details?

Harold Kidd Input

She was built by Ralph Shepherd of Kowhai Rd Birkdale for himself in 1932 when he was 24. He and his brother Harry were in business as motor body builders. Their main customer was the Birkenhead Bus Co. Ralph went overseas during WW2.
My friend Wallace McNair, (and Russell’s too), the amazing vintage car restorer of Hamilton, had her on the Waikato at Hamilton for several years. His son Robert later had her on the Clevedon River. I’ll ask Wallace for some pics.

Waikato Woodys – Sailing Sunday #1

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P Class yachts, Karapiro Lake, 1949
Easter Regatta, Hamilton Lake, 1949a
Easter Regatta, Hamilton Lake, 1949b
​Idlle Along “Judith” Hamilton Lake c.1949
Idle Along race, Hamilton
Idle Along H2 ‘Judith’ at Huntly?

WAIKATO WOODYS – SAILING SUNDAYS#1
photos & details ex Judith Wallath

Judith has just finished reading Jimmy Gilpin’s book “Winners are Grinners” and was amused to discover that her last year in P Class on Hamilton Lake coincided with his first year (although he was from Tauranga). The Cambridge Boating Club held a Regatta in 1949 to celebrate the completion of Karapiro Dam and the formation of the Lake. The first photo above was taken by Waikato Times/Herald photographer, Mr Fred Louden. Judith is on the right hand end (H11) and Jimmy Gilpin (T23) is at the left end.
Judith says the only remarkable thing she did that day was to break her yacht’s centre board during the capsize race in front of the crowd of spectators. It was her first (and last) attempt at a capsize race 🙂

The 2nd & 3rd photos are from the Hamilton Yacht Club inaugural Easter Regatta in 1949 and Jimmy G was there, well towards the front.  Jimmy and Judith are both in the P Class line-up at the lake edge before the race. Incidentally, the water tower, pictured, had a piece of roofing iron wrapped around it for years.  A memento of the 1949 Frankton tornado.

The 4th, 5th & 6th photos are of the  Idle Along H2 ‘Judith’ that belonged to Judith’s brother Brian. She was built by Brian and their father in the back yard, with encouragement from retired Hamilton builder Harold Martin an enthusiastic yachtsman. Mr Martin towed her to Auckland for the Anniversary Regatta, behind his Model T Ford. On the way back to Hamilton an accident occurred and ‘Judith’ suffered a stoved in side.  Promptly repaired, and back on the lake.

Harold Kidd Input

Harold Martin Sr was briefly in partnership with Chas Collings as “Collings & Martin” from 1907. He and his sons were very important in Waikato and Rotorua sailing in the 30s and 40s with the Idle Alongs IONA (1936), IDA (1939), TAMARA (1940) and WINSOME (1944). They also built and raced the X Class MYSTERY (1922) and the Zeddies TUI (1932) and CUPID (1951) amongst probably several other centre boarders.
Harold Sr lived at Orakei originally and built and/or owned several mullet boats until he left Auckland to live in Hamilton c1920. These included the 22 footer TE ATA and the 26 footer MYSTERY. The name MYSTERY was used by at least three generations of Martins for their yachts from at least 1874.
Similarly the Neilsons of Kawhia, and later of Tauranga, used the name CHARM for a couple of generations including for Jimmy Gilpin’s first Tauranga 7 footer CHARM (to close the circle).
BTW the car towing Briian Wallath’s IA isn’t a Ford T if Judith meant that. It’s a big American tourer of c1924, probably a 6 cylinder Buick. The trailer has 1935 Ford V8 car wheels.

P.S.  – Harold Martin didn’t last long in business with Chas Collings, but then nobody did, neither the Clare brothers, Harold Martin nor Alf Bell. I gather he was “difficult”, but he kept the Bell name in the business long after they parted ways during WW1 when Alf went off to help the Walsh brothers build and maintain their flying boats at Kohimarama.

Updated 03-11-2015 Photo below ex Harold Kidd  of Le Clerc’s IA JUDITH on Hamilton Lake with the 14 footer PERSEUS (Y8) and Frostbite 151, KIRIROA, c1949.

 

 

Norma

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1928
1929
1939

NORMA
photos via Nathan Herbert ex Manukau Yacht & Launch Club collection

Three photos today of the 40′ launch Norma. The top one is dated 14-01-1915. The middle one records her in 1929 winning a MY&LC race for launches helmed by ladies. Also featured are the yachts ‘Sea Gnome’ & ‘Sylvis’.
The bottom photo is from 1939 & shows Norma & the 26′ launch ‘Marina’ being off loaded (lorry?) & re-launched into the Waitemata Harbour. I’m sure Harold can enlighten ww followers the reason these launches made the trip from the Manukau.

Can we expand some more on Norma – designer/builder etc?

Harold Kidd Input

There were several NORMAs. This Coulthard NORMA was built at Onehunga for the Jeffs brothers and launched in November 1913. She was a 32ft flushdecker with an anonymous 10hp engine but had a 30hp 4 cylinder Wolseley installed in the winter of 1919. The Jeffs sold her to C. “Shorty” Schnauer in January 1921. In the 1930s she was sold to Whitianga for game fishing. She was owned there by Bill Clark and was in Whitianga until at least 1980.
I don’t know this MARINA under that name. There were many MARINAS, another one game fishing out of Mangawai in the early thirties owned by Franich but it can’t be this one.

SEA GNOME was one of the square bilge 14 footers built by George Honour that formed the basis of the so-called “Sea Class”, 14ft “flatties” most with names starting with “Sea” that latter morphed into the Auckland Y Class. Honour built her in 1921 and she was an immediate champion. Chuck Auger owned her for 14l years and took her to the Manukau in 1927. She raced on both harbours. The Y14 on her sail was her Manukau number.
SYLVIA was a 22ft mullet boat designed by Dick Lang and built by Harvey & Lang in October 1912. She was on the Manukau from 1924 to 1930, mostly owned by C. Paul.