Fidelis + Ranger + Mason Clipper

photos ex mason clipper facebook page

On the day when the CYA’s Classic Yacht Regatta should be being decided on the water, I thought it very approximate to publish the photo of Fidelis & Ranger sitting on the hard along with a Mason Clipper. Photo was taken at the Westhaven main ramp in 1968 when the A Class keeler ‘Fidelis’ was owned by Jim Davern left and on the right ‘Ranger’ owned then by Lou Tercel.

Unfortunately the weather gods have not been kind & the regatta was cancelled. My waterfront spies tell me both yachts + Te Aroa did race in the RNZYS Friday night harbour race with Fidelis pipping Ranger at the finish.

I have also posted a few stunning Clipper photos below.
One of the great mysteries of the classic boating movement is why these wonderful vessels were never really adopted by classic motorboat followers. Any where else in the world you would see groups of them restored to showroom condition. Only in the last few years have we seen the restoration of a few.

Maybe the reason has something to do with a tale told to me by an old yachtie. It went something like this.

In the early days of boating on the Waitemata, yachting was the big thing, interrupted occasionally by (slightly) managed motorboat racing. With the arrival of boats like the Mason Clippers, almost overnight there were scores of boats capable of exceeding 40mph, these boats were able to be purchased almost like a motor car & were as easy to ‘drive’. A whole new group of people entered the boating scene. You only have to look back at the list of the original Clipper owners, to see that to the whos who of Auckland business, owning a Clipper was the thing to do. The quiet bay & anchorages of the past the yachties treasured were now being invaded by a new ‘set’.

Is it possible that back then, the Clipper was ‘tagged’ by yachties like most of us now tag jet ski’s ?, remember this was in the days before big fast outboards were common.

(I read somewhere that it was 5 years before Sea Spray featured a Clipper in the magazine, further proof that they were not openly accepted?)