LABOUR WEEKEND CLASSIC WOODY BOATING AT KAWAU ISLAND

LABOUR WEEKEND CLASSIC WOODY BOATING AT KAWAU ISLAND

In recent years the Kawau Boating Club have probably been the must progressive boating club in town with their upgrades to facilities – clubhouse, jetty, fuel dock etc and securing the longtime tenure on the clubs assets.

In addition to all this the club, spearheaded by Mike Mahoney, have been planning to create an icon event for the club – well sometimes looking backwards is a smart thing – for decades the KBC hosted every Labour Weekend an OPENING WEEKEND REGATTA, but for all the wrong reasons the event had slipped off the calendar. Fast forward to 2024 and opening weekend at Kawau is back – bigger and better than ever. 

KBC will be holding hands with the Ponsonby Cruising Club to offer up an action packed long weekend of boating activity – afloat and ashore. See below for details.

While most of the on-the-water activity is sailing focussed, WW have been working with KBC and PCC to encourage classic woody launches and classic cruising yachts to attend. 

The plan is to hold a classic woody event on the Sunday where woodys will participate in a parade around the bays / baches in Bon Accord Harbour – along the lines of the Mahurangi Weekend launch parade. Meeting time will be 11am off KBC wharf.

We will spice it up with prizes for things like – Best Dressed Craft / Longest Traveled / Oldest Boat / Lucky Draw etc – + all woodys in the parade will also go in the draw for a haul-out at the Slipway Milford yard. On the Saturday there will be a waitematawoodys gathering ashore to catch up and enjoy each others company. There will be lots of opportunities over the weekend to enjoy the recently refurbished clubhouse – so make plans to be there.

So for now

1. Circle Oct 25 > 28 in the diary

  1. 2. View / download the file below to read all about the weekend.

3. If you own a yacht or crew on one – down load the entry form at the link below

And there is always a woody boat story – check out the photo below ex Ken Ricketts of two woodys in Whakatakataka Bay (Orakei, Auckland), can we put a name to the boat in the foreground. Excuse the image quality – pulled off TV screen.

INPUT ex NATHAN HERBERT – It’s Natasha which kept sinking and then was hauled at Okahu and presumably left by road or bin. The other is a Kempthorne / Salthouse KB760 type, presumable fibreglass. https://waitematawoodys.com/2017/06/07/natasha/

Natasha

DSCN1669

DSCN1663

NATASHA

Nathan Herbert sent in the above photos of the launch Natasha, moored in Whakatakataka Bay. Nathan passes Natasha every time he heads out in Lucinda & in his eye, the waterline just doesn’t look right. Hopefully the ‘low-rider’ look is due to a giant of an engine + the weight of all the added extra’s & not due to her being thirsty i.e. water ingress.

Other than the fact that she is un-loved & not used, what do we know about her?

UPDATE 04-03-2022 Will based on the above photos, it looked like it was always going to be a sad ending – and it was. She sunk on her mooring and was offered for sale by the insurance assessors.

08-03-2022 More photos ex Angus Rogers