Twenty Eight Feet – life on a little wood boat
I challenge you to watch this 8 minute movie about David Welsford & his life & travels on a H28 & not get itchy feet. Perfect entertainment for a wet Sunday – Enjoy 🙂
Whangateau Traditional Boat Regatta & Yard Open Day – Part 2
Scroll down to previous post to view Part 1 (42 photos)
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click photos to enlarge
Whangateau Traditional Boat Regatta & Yard Open Day
The Whangateau crew of Pam & George once again threw their yard open to lovers of classic wooden boats on Sunday (May 4th 2014). The regatta also served as a welcome to ‘Laughing Lady’ the new motorboat arrival from the USA that will be receiving some WTB love.
The autumn day was perfect – sun,wind & great boats. The food & people were pretty good as well 🙂
The regatta follows a well rehearsed format – boats out on the beach, sailors & crew arrive, boats rigged, wait for the tide (&wind), race begins/ends, lunch, prize giving. Now if that sounds like any old regatta – I can assure you Whangateau is not that. The fun & ‘games’ as people secure a boat, select sails & rudders etc & rig up is hilarious & the old salts on hand prove invaluable, in fact it wouldn’t happen with out them. No problem if something does not fit, its into the workshop & onto to the saw bench for some adjustments. Thanks to Jason Prew & Nathan Herbert for the ride aboard Otira, the 1902 Logan motorboat.
Your own Steve Horsley won the race (again) , chased / followed very closely by launch owner Shane Anderson, who had to draw on his past yachting days to keep Steve honest & win a waitematawoodys t-shirt.
A lot of the crew got into the spirit of the day & dressed as pirates.
I’m not going to attempt to caption all the photos, there are just too many – I post today a selection to give you a gander of what makes the people & the place so special.
Tomorrow I’ll post another selection – there is just too many for one day 😉
click photos to enlarge
Click the blue link below to read Jane High’s post regatta newsletter
Who Can ID This Yacht
We are over due for a little bit of yachting – now this one will have the crusty old salts scratching their heads. The image is a contact print off a glass plate that was sent to me by Keith Ottaway. The original was taken by his wife’s great grandfather, Richard George Collins.
The location is obviously Devonport & as a starting point, RGC started ‘taking’ photos c.1895
Harold Kidd Update
A most unusual hull-form for Auckland, unlikely to have been built by any of the mainstream builders like Logan or Bailey. She’s a Devonport boat, hauled up alongside the wharf at the foot of Church Street.
My wild guess is that she’s the 4 tonner WANDERER, built in Devonport by Tom Le Huquet in October 1891, soon after he set up in business there. If so she was built as a cruiser for J.C. Webster but was a total loss when she broke away from her moorings under North Head in a hard NE blow in May 1893. She came up on the rocks at St Mary’s Point and was badly damaged. From the sound of it she was beyond economical repair.
Jack Webster immediately ordered another yacht from Robert Logan, the 38ft cutter NGARU, which also had a sad fate when she was wrecked on the south end of Rangipuke Island at Christmas 1900 when owned by C.B. Stone.
The hull-form of the yacht in the image is almost French smack and quite reminiscent of the oyster and crabbing boats Le Huquet had been building in Jersey,. particularly the treatment of the stern. But there were all sorts of hulls being built at the time and I am likely to be totally wrong.
Follow up update 05/05/14
If I’m right, and she does have the ancestry I think, then you can see how this form of hull would work well in an environment where the tides average 40ft and all boats dry out on legs. The extended, flat forefoot, the protected and vertical rudder, plus the great deal of sheer to cope with the short steep seas in the very shallow waters around the Normandy/Brittany coast with strong winds and 10+ knot tides on occasion where much passage making is done by sling-shotting the tides.
Images from the start of today’s Fosters Vintage & Veterans Yacht Race – Ponsonby Cruising Club
Click on photos to enlarge.
Enjoy 🙂
Mary E Taylor Painting
Image ex John Burland
Painted in 1990 by Devonport painter Mary Taylor, titled ‘Houses & Boats’.
Anyone able to ID the launch, bottom left. Looks a little like my girl – Raindance – but not her.
14/04/2014 Some feedback (ex Rod Marler) from the artist, Mary Taylor.
“Re: the launch in the art piece. This pic is based loosely on a launch I saw that day. I don’t know what its name was but the boats I selected for my pic were based on craft that I liked the look of. They appeared in reality in a bit of a jumble, so the challenge was to place them into a pleasing composition and to simplify what was there.
I was in the Torpedo Bay area looking back to the land”
Whangateau Traditional Boats Regatta – Part Two
photos Shane Anderson, Mark Lever, Alan Wallace & Phillip Jones
Remember clicking on the photos will enlarge then for your viewing
See previous post (below) for more photos
Whangateau Traditional Boats Regatta – Part One
This is the coolest thing happening, down under, in the traditional wooden boating world – if you have not been to Tramcar Bay, you need to ask yourself how serious you are about wooden boats.
photos Shane Anderson, Mark Lever, Alan Wallace & Phillip Jones
Clicking on the photos above will enlarge them 😉
Saturday March 8th was the 12th year that Whangateau Traditional Boats has hosted a regatta at Tramcar Bay Whangateau. The regatta was initiated by Russell Ward who in the early days focused on steamboat maintenance. Russell held 2-3 regattas before Pam Cundy and George Emtage started repairing their first boats at the historic boat building sheds 9 years ago.
Whangateau Traditional Boats are involved with the preservation and restoration of classic and traditionally built wooden boats, both big & small. George and Pam (both boat builders) have amassed a fleet of traditional planked small craft. Some purchased, many donated, some saved from the tip but all needing their restoration skills. The regatta is a perfect venue for Pam & George to showcase these boats & provides the local community with the opportunity to participate. The craft are offered for the publics use, as they want to create opportunities and acceptance of our traditional wooden boat heritage. These craft are complementary to the ongoing survival of the historic boatbuilding shed and yard.
On regatta day some arrive with their own small boats, others help and crew on the WTB fleet, many just enjoy the spectacle and a day on the beach. Among the small boats held by WTB are 7 x Z class, 3 x Idle Alongs, 1 x Frostbite, 3 x Cadet training boats, 2 x Dory’s, 1 x S class open 16ft, 1 x T class open 14ft & then some.
Bridging the gap between these small boats and some of the larger boats WTB are restoring is Desdimona, an 18ft Mullet boat seen in some of the photos.
The conditions on the Saturday were near perfect – full sun, high tide at 1.00 pm & a light 5 knot breeze.
The historic red sheds sit amongst the mangroves on Tramcar Bay. The beach is very tidal with enough water for small boats approx 1.5 hours either side of high tide. So the regatta is a brief 2-3 hours of sailing time & the format is casual – sail it, row it, talk it. All levels & ages of sailors & rowers are welcome. But keep an eye on your watch, get the timing wrong & there’s a long walk over the mud flats. The regatta is a great get together for the local boating community. Pam and George generously host the event with the historic boat building sheds open on the beach. The March regatta was so popular another will be held very soon – date tbc.
Enjoy the photos, more tomorrow 🙂
Nahlin
In the last few weeks the Waitemata Harbour & outer gulf has been graced with the presence of one of the most beautiful vessels afloat – Nahlin. I have posted recently about her but I was sent last week by CYA member Nathan Herbert, two photos of Nahlin from the 1930’s anchored in Whangaroa Harbour. Given that she was launched in 1930 & her first owner Lady Anne Henrietta Yule had requested “a steamship built that could take me around the world in total comfort”, she was probably on her maiden circumnavigation. It took her 80 odd years to make it back, but it was worth it. In between she had a very colorful life – In 1937 King Edward VIII chartered her for a cruise of the Adriatic with Mrs Wallis Simpson aboard. The Kings one request before departing was for the library to be cleared of all books to allow more alcohol to be stowed 🙂
Lady Yule must have been as my son would say – ‘well wedged’, in total she ordered 3 steam yachts from shipbuilders John Brown & Co, all 300ft plus. Lady Yule sold Nahlin in 1937 to the King of Romania for 120,000 pounds, a staggering amount back then.
Before being rescued from Romania in the late 1990’s she had been a floating museum, floating restaurant.
Her restoration was a rocky road with the ship yard going into receivership. She was recommissioned in 2010 & is currently owned by British industrial entrepreneur, Sir James Dyson.
The name, Nahlin is taken from the native american word meaning ‘fleet of foot’ & at 300′, with the top speed of 17+ knots, she is that. There is a figurehead of a native american wearing a feathered headdress beneath her bowsprit.
In the bigger photo, on the right is Milford Island & Peach Island behind, on her starboard side.
b/w photos ex British Museum Collection
Sailing Sunday – K Class Rally
This weekend just gone, Peter Mence herded a collection of the CYA K-Class fleet together for a wee gathering. The weekend started off with drinks aboard the yachts that came into the Viaduct for the dinner later in the evening. Saturday saw a race to Kawau Island, with a BBQ ashore at John Pryor’s
The photos above are from Friday at the Viaduct.
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