Whangateau Traditional Boat Regatta & Yard Open Day – Part 1

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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

The shed
Steve scoping the boats
Steve H rigging up
The Rudder Library
The Skippers
The winners- Steve H & Jane
2nd place – Shane A & crew
Pirates
The Best Pirate
Hugh Gladwell the auctioneer with George spotting bids

Click the blue link below to read Jane High’s post regatta newsletter

Whangateau Article 2014

Takaro

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TAKARO

update photos from Zach Matich
Takaro was built approx 1952 & has had the same owner for the last 29 years.
35 ft kauri planked displacement launch, with a 11’3” beam which makes her a wide bottomed girl 🙂
She has recently been fitted with a reconditioned 120hp D-series Ford motor with Lees Marine conversion. Top speed is 10 knots, with a comfortable cruise speed of 8 knots, which = 7L per hour.
Home port is Pahi on the Kaipara Harbour & she is for sale on trademe.
Anyone able to expand on the builder, designer?

Harold Kidd Update

My first thought was that she’s very like the Colin Wild-designed 34 ft sedans that John Salthouse and then Salthouse Bros carried on building after Wild died. I went to the TradeMe entry which says “TAKARO = PLAYMATE” so Ken’s memory is correct on this occasion.
MY PLAYMATE was indeed designed by Colin Wild and built by O’Rorke Bros in 1949/50 for M.V. Wilson of Awatea Rd Parnell who owned her until at least 1964. Her original engine was a 90hp Chrysler. It looks like her present owner of 29 years didn’t like her name so used the Maori equivalent.
There were a couple of plain PLAYMATES owned by Roy Swales, a 22 footer he built himself in 1931 and the bridge decker built for him by Sam Ford in 1936 which caused confusion with MY PLAYMATE whose “MY” was eventually dropped in the Squadron and APYMBA records.

PS One of the brothers,J.J. O’Rorke, was a shipwright and boatbuilder living at Westmere. He built my former E Class keeler LOLOMA in 1909 and a number of big workboats over the years including MAROKOPA for Marokopa and RATAHI for Tauranga.

Can Anyone ID This Yacht?

Image

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Can Anyone ID This Yacht?

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.

Autumn Cruising

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RainDance
RainDance
RainDance
Rorqual
Silens
Waimiga
Waimiga
Waimiga

Playing Hooky

It appears that quite a few CYA launch owners took the opportunity today to pay hooky & grab the last few days of Autumn. As they say, made if you don’t 🙂

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laughing lady regatta

Whangateau Traditional Boat Yard Open Day / Regatta

If you are out & about this Sunday & looking for a nice drive, the Whangateau Traditional Boat yard is throwing the doors open for people to view the newest arrival – Laughing Lady to the boat yard and New Zealand. The American and NZ flags will be flying & the theme for the day is red, white & blue or even just something nautical e.g. a boat hat.
And as is always the way – a selection of small craft will be out for inspection & visitors are welcome (encouraged) to bring their own craft.

For the newbies that have not been to one of the regattas before , its a very casual day where you make your own fun and are responsible for yourself i.e. if you are boating, bring and wear your own life jacket.

Bring a picnic lunch or have one of our sausages or bring your own sausages for the BBQ.

There will be a donation box for the sausages and the days events and for up-keep on the small craft on offer.

A course will be set to sail, motor or paddle around, out from the bay.This is open for all to join in

The boat yard is open to view Laughing Lady till 4.00pm

Please mind your footing around the yard, this is a traditional working boat yard.!

How do you get there?

Drive past Matakana aprox 9.1 km to 397 Leigh Road, Tramcar Bay & look for the one way bridge, park on the other side of the bridge please.

Launching of boats can be done from the reserve access by the boat yard, but be early to do this.

High tide is at 11.00 am – so 9.30 for setting up the boats – then as soon as the tide allows, hit the water & we shall signal you back for the start of the race 10.30-11.30 start of race.
Confused ? it will be all clear on the day 🙂

 

 

Waiata & her builder

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WAIATA & HER BUILDER

details & photos (b/w) by Harold Kidd, colour photo ex Rob Uivel

Waiata is featured else where on several ww posts but Harold’s below brings every together.

Rob Uivel owns the neat little launch WAIATA which is a remarkable survivor from the pre-WW1 period, 101 years old and going strong still. WAIATA was built by David Reid at his yard in Drake Street, Freeman’s Bay and launched in November 1913 for Devonport enthusiasts Edward Percy Earle and Alfred George Lunn who were keen competitors in the highly popular NZ Power Boat Association races in the “under 9 knots” category. Her first engine was a 14hp (rated) Britt engine but that was changed in 1921 for a 14hp Westman engine, for which W.R. Twigg was the local agent.

She held the NZPBA championship pennant several times during WW1. She also took part in the search for Count von Luckner when he and several other German prisoners of war escaped from Motuihe in the launch PEARL in December 1917. Earle dropped out of ownership in late 1919. Lunn became Commodore of the NZPBA in 1920 but sold WAIATA around 1922. She pretty much drops out of sight except for being recorded as being used as mark boat for Devonport Yacht Club and other clubs’ yacht races right through the 1930s. It would be interesting if WW people could fill in the gap between then and now.

David Reid was a very good boat builder indeed and had the agency for the very fine Buffalo marine engine. He had a prodigious output of launches culminating in the very fast Cascade in early 1916. David was the son of Robert Reid whose business he had taken over in 1904, and the brother of James Reid who was equally important as a launch builder. However, David suffered from asthma so badly that he sold his business, machinery and moulds to T.M. Lane & Sons and left for Queensland in late 1916.  It was a very great loss to this country.

photo below of 1st owner – Alfred Lunn

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HMNZS KOURA

A clip from a chat between Russell Ward & Alan H
photo ex Basil Rutherford collection

Anywhere else in the world , these ladies would be being restored & proudly on display.
Instead another one is about to be slaughtered at Paeroa or Thames on 14 May or thereabouts.
It has reached the end of a sad trot of indifferent ownership and has been given her marching orders from the Maritime Park. It is a shame because when Paeroa were given her, she was one of the better ones the Navy had.
Tarapunga died a few weeks ago. Another whose name escapes me did some impact hydrography in Milford Sound last week.

Manga is making her last sacrifice at Helensville .
These eminently useable boats are vanishing at a rate.
Paea is going strong and may be the beneficiary of Koura’s parts.

The simply lesson here is that old boats have got to be kept working. If not they just rot away.

Interested in reading more on all things Motor Launch, be they serving in the Navy or in civvy hands. (over 250 photo’s and 50+ stories and tech data / links to other ML pages) Check out the link below
 

http://rednaz1958.blogspot.com/2016/03/composite-list-of-hdmls-still-active.html

A Modern Classic

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A Modern Classic

If someone in Auckland does not nab this soon, I beat you it will be heading off to the lakes.

You rarely see the angles & proportions looking right on a sub 30′ boat. At 25′ this one is dam near spot on, but you would expect that given it was modelled on a William Garden dory design. A great picnic boat, she has explored harbours, lakes and rivers. With a double v berth forward , over-nighters are also on the agenda.

Built in 2005 from ply (I known, I’ll go & wash my mouth out) & glassed over (make that a double wash) she has a 2005 21h.p. Nanni diesel motor, done 400hrs from new & wait for it, she even has a bow thruster……….

On trademe for $30k, would be hard to find a better boat of that money.

Seagull

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SEAGULL

Now this boat has some provenance, built in 1953 at the Devonport Navy dockyard, was originally on the starboard side of the HMNZ Monowai Survey ship.

29.8’ in length & powered by a 53hp diesel, new in 2004, now with     1850 hrs on the clock.

Seagull is a solid, reliable, economic, ex Navy survey launch converted to pleasure use & is perfect for cruising around the Hauraki Gulf.

Recent work over the winter of 2013 includes, full hull repaint, including anti foul, new cockpit, lockers, new toilet, new stern platform with stainless steel ladder. Full engine service, oil and filters, belts etc including new batteries.

Garmin GPS chart plotter/fish finder. New VHS radio. New 2 burner gas stove. Good sized electric fridge. Solar panels for battery backup.

Owned by a fellow DYC member, Seagull is currently for sale on trademe as her owner has a desire to return to the dark side (sail)…… Hopefully he will see the light & buy a motorsailer.