BEN BOLT S48 – Sailing Sunday
photo ex Gillian Williamson

Today’s post is of the mullet boat Ben Bolt when she was owned by Gillian’s father Tom Hollows.

Gillian & Tom would love to know what happened to her & if she is still around today.

ps sorry about the poor photo, must have been a photo taken off a framed photo, a bit of reflection going on 🙂

Robin Elliott Update

Whisk Martinengo maintained that Ben bolt was in fact a Rudder cat-boat design built by Arthur Perkin(s) and I have no cause to doubt him. He was right about so many other things. Many Rudder designs were appropriated by local yachtsmen and modified to local needs, the cat-rig itself never finding favour here apart from small centre boarders such and the Tauranga (P-class) or the Zeddie.

Here is all I have of her owners. No mention of Tom Hollows but there are plenty of gaps in the registered dates so he could be there somewhere.

What date is the photo? I see she’s flying an RNZYS burgee and I seem to recall her being on the register of the Squadron post war, but I can’t fine my old RNZYS year books to see if I missed something.

A. Perkin 1922/23+? A. (F.) Glover (Grover?) 1925?/30+?; A. Sainty & Others 1931?/33; S.V. Cunningham 1933/34+? ; Brown (Whangarei) 1939?/40+?; R.M. Allen (Whangarei) 1945+? ; D. O’Donoghue (W’rei) 1948?/50+?

NZH 30/1/1940: Racing Onerahi Regatta
SS May 1949: Racing with Whangarei CC
NZYB Sep 1978: G.F. Brookbanks says he owned her before WW2.

Update: Gordon Brookbanks owned her in the 1935/36 season.