What’s Happening With The Percy Vos Shed?

What’s Happening With The Percy Vos Shed?
Tony Stevenson
Robert Brooke
Baden Pascoe
Classic Yacht & Launch Exhibition 2017 – The NZ Clinker Boat
Over the weekend the Tino Rawa Trust hosted the 10th Classic Yacht & Launch Exhibition at Karanga Plaza on Auckland waterfront Wynyard Quarter. If you missed the event, you really did miss something special. The feature this year was the New Zealand Clinker Boat.
I went to the opening commemorative (Tony Stevenson, likes flash words) morning tea on Friday, if you were looking for a wooden boat builder or a fountain of knowledge on wooden boats, you would have been stunned at the guest list, it was the who’s who of NZ classic wooden boat movement. If you weren’t there you must have done something really bad in a past life to not be invited 😉
Above is a selection of the boats on display, taken on Friday when the crowds were light. Enjoy 🙂
Talking to Tony Stevenson, Jason Prew & Baden Pascoe last night & this years event was hands down the most successful in terms of attendee numbers, Saturday being huge. Well done guys.
Sailing Sundays
CYA member Baden Pascoe blew the dust off his I4 footer today at St Heliers. Baden’s father built her in the early 1980’s & Baden describes her as the Ferrari of light weight clinker sailing dinghys. Must have been a blast for his boys skinning along in a NNE breeze with Tony Blake on the helm.
The tow vehicle is a tad classic as well 🙂
A Special Woody Weekend
Today was a special day on the woody boating front – Baden Pascoe officially launched his book ‘Launching Dreams – Percy Vos – The Boat & His Boys’ at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron. We saw over 300 of the classic boating fraternity & people connected to Percy Vos – family, friends & ex work mates join together to celebrate the event & rub shoulders. Great speeches but the key message of the day came from John Street to Sir Bob Harvey (Chairman of Waterfront Auckland) & that was that the Vos Shed project was LONG over due & action was need NOW. Todays audience certainly agreed 🙂
A few photos from the launch / morning tea.
Copies in your local book-store now or from Baden on badenhp@xtra.co.nz
AN INVITE TO MORNING TEA
CYA member Baden Pascoe has written a magnificent pictorial and historical record that celebrates the life of Auckland businessman and renowned boatbuilder Percy Vos, his boats and the people who worked with him – ‘Launching Dreams – Percy Vos – The Boats & His Boys’
Baden’s interest in Percy Vos is fueled by the Pascoe family association to the Vos yard. Baden’s father, Howard Pascoe, a very talented centre board sailor and boatbuilder, worked for Percy in the 1940’s.
To quote Harold Kidd here on waitematawoodys “it’s not only a great read but a beautiful thing to hold in the hand; a superbly produced book that glitters at you at all sorts of levels. A complete “must buy” for anyone with a whiff of salt in his or her veins”
There is an open invitation to all lovers of classic yachts, launches & work boats to attend a morning tea to celebrate the launch of the book. The event will also be a wonderful opportunity to rub shoulders with some of the legends that worked at Vos and you will be able to buy an autographed copy of Launching Dreams. If you can’t make the morning tea, check out the major book sellers who have copies, the perfect Christmas gift for all waitematawoodys.
Venue : Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron – Dinghy Locker – Westhaven
Date: Sunday 24th November – this Sunday
Time: 10a.m.
A little bit of a heads up, very very soon we will see the launch of a new book ‘Launching Dreams – Percy Vos – The Boats & His Boys’ by CYA member Baden Pascoe. I have had the pleasure to work with Baden on the production of the publication & its a both a great read & a wonderful pictorial insight into the world of Percy Vos & the people that rubbed up against him.
It’s not only a great read but a beautiful thing to hold in the hand; a superbly produced book that glitters at you at all sorts of levels. A complete “must buy” for anyone with a whiff of salt in his or her veins.
The Pascoe Model Collection by Baden Pascoe
The Pascoe family has been associated with model yachting for almost 100 years.
In about 1912 Charles “Charlie” Pascoe, my grandfather, meet “Chips” Fordyce” and had a 30” hull shaped. He finished off this hull, rigged it and gave it the name “ Star “. From what I understand this was the beginning of the Pascoe’s association with model yachting.
Now I have a bit of thing for what the English call ‘pond yachts’. The one on the mantlepiece above, my wife rescued from a Devonport junk shop as a bare hull & in the halcyon days of the 1980’s, I paid a man to make the rig & sails for it, thank god I did not re-paint the hull, that would have halved its value. These days they sell on e-bay for really silly money but mines not for sale.
Whitianga New Years Day Regatta #2 c.1950/51
Launches along side of Wharf: Fore to back: Marlin (Roley Smith), Eta B (Ted Bronlund), then little launch with rounded cabin top: Peggy, owned by the Morcombs & built by Bill Nobel at Whitianga in the 1920’s, then behind her: Renown (A White), then Spray (W Heald). Boat with skipper on wheel house: Scripps (Albert Bowman), the boat with the man at bow: Te Kuti (Jim Wilkins) and the boat behind her no name but owned by Trevor Brown.
Caption & photo supplied by Baden Pascoe. Photo taken by Simon Bronlund’s aunt Joyce.
Whitianga New Years Day Regatta #1 c. 1950/51
Boats steaming
(L > R) – Eta B (Ted Bronlund), Waihaka (Alf Lee), Scripps (Albert Bowman), Ronomor (Bert Chaney) and the little runabout, name unknown but was owned by Harry Hancock. Last launch unknown.
Caption & photo supplied by Baden Pascoe. Photo taken by Simon Bronlund’s aunt Joyce