Tag Archives: Mahurangi Harbour

Launches Cruising The Mahurangi River 

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Launches Cruising The Mahurangi River 

Many moons ago (2010ish)  when the CYA launch fleet was alive and active, one of the more successful events was a cruise up the Mahurangi Harbour / river to the Warkworth town dock. Very much a follow the leader trip, but we all got there and rafted up for a few hours ashore. Sadly most of the photos from that trip died when the CYA pulled the pin of what was the CYA FORUM, but a few survived (the last two above)

The above photos above from ex Mitchell Hutchings fb ex the Parsonson Family collection c.1980’s reminded me very much of the river trip .

The photo below ex Ken Ricketts dated c.1961 also shows how popular the destination was with launches.

So – woodys once the final dredging of the river is complete, I promise a woodys weekend trip up the river – it will be a doozie 🙂

Photo below of Aoma c.1955 ex K Ricketts

Mahurangi Regatta – Woody Weekend – 196 photos

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MAHURANGI 2021 REGATTA –  196 WOODEN BOATING PHOTOS & VIDEOS

WoW what a weekend – perfect weather, perfect location and as always stunning boats. We saw a record turn out for the classic wooden boat parade on Saturday morning – the crowd ashore at Sullivans was a little thin on the ground, but if we are honest, we do not do it for them – its all about us 🙂 , a little like going for a motorbike rumble. We need more events where we just ‘hang-out’ together.

The regatta’s main event – the yacht race appeared to be a big success, the A-Class Logan –  Rawhiti, in the hands of her new owner – Peter Brookes, cleaned up all the major trophies. As has become the norm at Mahurangi races, the results process was a total balls up, it was very dark and late into the night before the final, final results were announced – fingers crossed its all kosher, last year it took days and numerous oops lets try that again announcements 🙂


The big band beach BBQ, was a hit, perfect on all fronts – weather, tide, the band, bbq’s and the people. Given the number of boats in Bon Accord Harbour, Kawau Island, most people headed there on Sunday. The Kawau Boating Boat was bursting at the seams but handed it well. I have split the photos into 4 galleries – Classic Wooden Boat Parade – Yacht Race – Beach BBQ – More (includes Kawau). If I missed your boat, you were somewhere I wasn’t, or in the wrong light , or your’e boats ugly (joking – sort off).
Enjoy a peak at the weekend., click individual photos to enlarge. Next weekend I’m off to the Lake Rotoiti Classic and Wooden Boat Parade –  its a biggie – they have 70+ entries  

CLASSIC WOODEN BOAT PARADE

YACHT RACE

BEACH BBQ

MORE + KAWAU ISLAND

waitematawoodys@gmail.com

Wynyards (Lushington’s) Bay + Wirihana 1

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Wynyards (Lushington’s) Bay
photo ex Mac Taylor Collection

Now I’m sure to some / most of you the bay in the above photo will be very familiar but not to me. I have a good hunch but I’ll let you all chip in. Remember you can click on the image to enlarge & if you click again on the enlarged photo it will zoom in even more.

Wirihana 1
The 2nd part of today’s post is a great photo, below, I found in Mac Taylor’s album, the launch is the first Wirihana (1) – there is a great story found at the link below concerning Wirihana (1), which most likely became Lady Gay (1) + how Wirihana (2) & Lady Gay (2) fitted into the scene. Great reading & a fine example of the ww blog really working.
https://waitematawoodys.com/2015/03/23/wirihana-who-built-her/

Update

Seems everyone is right on the button with ID’ing the location – Harold Kidd sent me a link to the Henry Winkelmann photos (post card) ex the Auckland Museum collection below, taken in 1899. It is ‘Rodmershaw’ the residence of Mr Lushington.

I’m very familiar with the location as early one morning during a Mahurangi Regatta weekend, I had to retrieve my #1 kauri clinker dinghy from the beach after it went walkies in the night & washed up there, undamaged. The gods were smiling on me that weekend 🙂

Update from Harold Kidd
The photo below, ex Auckland Museum collection,  shows Mrs Lushington sitting on the ballast of her husband’s Robert Logan-built yacht MURITAI in 1899 at the property.
The 22ft mullet boat on the beach behind MURITAI is the 22 footer BELLE built by Hewson & Melville in 1883 also owned by Lushington. BELLE was converted to a deadwood keel yacht & later renamed LOTUS.

Muritai & Belle (Lotus) c1899

Pam Cundy Input

Pam sent me the photo below of of her partner, George Emtage, grandfather Captain George Samuel Emtage. They lived in a bay just around the corner from the bay shown above and worked for the Lushingtons and the Chandlers on Motuora. The excerpt from the book Jade River tells the story of how George’s family inherited Motuora island.